Subject/verb Agreement Again!

This morning's local newspaper reports that the alcohol producers in this country want the federal government to standardize dietary information on the labels of alcoholic products. http://www.discus.org That may be an excellent idea, but the reporter who wrote the story forgot about grammar agreement when creating this sentence:

The Distilled Spirits Council says that there's no consistent labeling rules for beer, wine and spirits to show consumers the serving size, calories and alcohol content per serving.

PERSISTENT REMINDER FROM GRAMMAR GLITCH: When a sentence begins with the word THERE, the choice of singular or plural verb depends on the SUBJECT, which appears AFTER the verb in this construction. Notice that I've highlighted the word "rules" in red in the above sentence. Because "rules" is plural, the reporter should have chosen THERE ARE instead of THERE IS. This sentence should read as follows:

The Distilled Spirits Council says that there are no consistent labeling rules for beer, wine and spirits to show consumers the serving size, calories and alcohol content per serving.

If the reporter wanted to use THERE IS, the sentence could have been written this way:

The Distilled Spirits Council says there is no consistent labeling (SINGULAR) for beer, wine and spirits to show consumers the serving size, calories and alcohol content per serving.

THERE IS not okay for plural ideas

I have three other posts that deal with the confusion of THERE and THEIR. Now comes the confusion of THERE IS and THERE ARE.

Consider this sentence that appeared in my local newspaper this morning in an article about a professor who has written a book to help teachers teach evolution in science classes without offending students' religious views:

"There is piles and piles of evidence for evolution, and scientists can explain that," Meadows said.

Whoops! If Meadows is speaking about "piles and piles" of something, that is plural. Therefore, he should use THERE ARE as the beginning of his sentence. He could only use THERE IS if he said something like this: THERE IS a pile of evidence for evolution. His sentence should read as follows:

There are piles and piles of evidence for evolution, and scientists can explain that," said Meadows.