There Is Or There Are A Lot

It s very common to hear things like there s over a hundred people in here.

There is or there are a lot. There are a lot of people. We use there is for singular and uncountable nouns and we use there are for plural countable nouns. To my mind the word lot could be substituted with box. Lot in this case is singular since it is a lot and not several lots.

Therefore you would either say there is a lot or there are lots. We don t say 1 sugar 2 sugars. Use there are when you re talking about a lot of something. If what follows a lot cannot be counted it is singular.

If you are referring to one lot of people it would be there is a lot of people if you are referring to several lots of people then it would be the plural there are lots of people take out the of people modifier and you ll see the difference. There is a lot of sugar. We don t say 2 furnitures. It cannot be counted.

But to me there s a lot of animals here will always sound as wrong as there is a lot of animals here. There are animals here but there s a lot of animals here that s why there s before a plural is often considered idiomatic basically correct. There are a lot of. So people who would never say there s animals here instead opting for the plural verb form in there are animals here are affected by the interceding a lot.

In addition to other reasons given it s singular because english speakers don t like putting multiple unstressed r sounds in a row. That is the modifying phrase a lot sounds singular. It cannot be counted there is a lot of furniture in the room. There is or there s is easier to say than there are.

To me both there is a lot of apples and there are a lot of apples both sound fine. There is there are some any in english grammar we use there is or there are to talk about things we can see and things that exist.