More on "There is" and "There are"

I've talked about this before, but here it is again: If you begin a sentence with "There," the verb is supposed to agree with what comes after the verb.


In the Tuesday, January 22 edition of USA Today, Alan Gomez wrote about Canada toughening its border interviews. He quoted three different people, and all three made errors in subject/verb agreement:


1) "There has been some changes in procedures," said one person.

This sentence should read as follows because "changes" is the subject, and it is plural:

There have been some changes in procedures.



2) "There's more questions being asked at the point of entry."

This sentence should read as follows:

There are more questions being asked at the point of entry.

Or, better yet in this case, get rid of "there are" and write the sentence this way:

More questions are being asked at the point of entry.


3) "...improved sharing of criminal databases have made it easier for Canadian border agents to identify Americans with a criminal past.

Whew! Double agreement problems here. First of all, "sharing" is the subject, and it is singular. Therefore, the verb "have made" should also be singular. That decision is not connected to "of criminal databases." Second, one American has one criminal past. The sentence portion should read as follows:

...improved sharing of criminal databases has made it easier for a Canadian border agent to identify an American with a criminal past.


4) "I couldn't fault any nation for trying to protect their borders."
"Any nation" refers to one country, so "their" is not the proper pronoun to refer back to that country. Depending on whether you like your countries of the feminine gender or just neuter, this sentence should read as follows:

I couldn't fault any nation for trying to protect its (her) borders.