7 ms·
From a prescriptive grammar standpoint, you're correct. From a descriptive standpoint, I'm not sure how common that contraction is, but I've heard it before and
by mcdonje 5y ago
From a prescriptive grammar standpoint, you're correct. From a descriptive standpoint, I'm not sure how common that contraction is, but I've heard it before and offhand it seems like it gets used in some regions.
Phonologically, it makes sense that it would gain traction as it's a means of avoiding the effort of the 'ere are' vowel combination. It's an addition rather than an elision, but the underlying motivation of saving effort is the same.
- jonny_eh 5y agoOne could even argue that "here's" is now an accepted conjugation of "here are".
- OJFord 5y agoEr, I'll happily take you up on that argument!
- efdee 5y agoThese kinds of arguments literally kill me.
- jonny_eh 5y ago
- DwnVoteHoneyPot 5y agoSince we're discussing grammer, when you say "literally", you mean figuratively?
- remedan 5y agoThey are using the phrase "literally kill me" as a hyperbole. It is a form of exaggeration. They are not in fact being killed, they are just annoyed. It is a rhetorical device used for emphasis. The word "literally" has been commonly used for hyperbole in English for hundreds of years. There is nothing grammatically wrong here.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- staticassertion 5y agoThe hyperbolic use of "literally" to mean "figuratively" goes back hundreds of years. > : in effect : VIRTUALLY —used in an exaggerated way to emphasize a statement or description that is not literally true or possible will literally turn the world upside down to combat cruelty or injustice — Norman Cousins https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally They justify this in a few places, including > The "in effect; virtually" meaning of literally is not a new sense. It has been in regular use since the 18th century and may be found in the writings of Mark Twain, Charlotte Brontë, James Joyce, and many others. edit: HN was loading really weird for me, I didn't see the sibling comment make this point already!
- anchpop 5y agoGrammer conversations are the very pineapple of useless discourse, and I don't see why we don't nip them in the butt. Weather you say "literally" or "figuratively", both are equally understandable for all intensive purposes. So as far as I'm concerned these arguments serve no porpoise and we'd be better off if they faded into Bolivian.
- efdee 5y agoI certainly do. More so, I was referencing the fact that the definition of the word "literally" now also includes "figuratively" in several English dictionaries as an example of a similar language development.
- CRConrad 5y ago> Since we're discussing grammer Kelsey?
- ropable 5y agoThis comment needed a sarcasm tag (I think).
- manigandham 5y agoIt's not accepted, it's just common ignorance.
- Spivak 5y agoYou dirty language prescriptivist! If English speakers and writers use it, it's correct.
- ludamad 5y agoHistory does not make much distinction between "language misuse" and "paradigm shifts"
- tomjakubowski 5y agoI accept it
- LordDragonfang 5y agohttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/here%27s https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/here%27s >1. Contraction of here is. >2. (nonstandard) Contraction of here are. Note this has been listed since at least 2006, based on the history.
- 867-5309 5y agothat's almost as annoying as "have you got them?" - "I do" - "do what.. do have? do got??"
- saghm 5y agoTo be fair, I think "do you have them?" would be more common for a lot of English speakers ("have you got" sounds British to me as an American, but it's possible that this is just a regional American thing). I'm not sure I would either think fast enough to care enough to tailor my automated response to a question like that based on the exact phrasing of the query.
- 867-5309 5y agoAmericans still use it as a response though, e.g. "You got this!" - "I do!". it's the "I do got" which really bugs me. "I do have" and "I have got" are fine and make sense
- smcnally 5y agoc.f. “It’s raining.” “What's raining?”
- ricardo81 5y agoThat sounds like something I would say, a more understandable aspect of Scots, even if it's no richt, ken.
- 867-5309 5y ago
- hnhamdani2 5y agoAs a non-native English speaker myself, I still find native using contraction on "there's two cats" counter intuitive. Sometimes I use the correct grammar "there are two cats" but then it sounds too formal for the native to heard it. Then I have to adjust with the "wrong" way of saying it.
- zarzavat 5y agoThere’s nothing grammatically incorrect about “there’s”. The oversight is in confusing a contraction with an abbreviation. “There’s” is a contraction for either “there is” or “there are” and the precise one is given by context. It is not a mere abbreviation for “there is”. Written contractions are meant to faithfully represent spoken English, in which people indeed say “there’s” for both the singular and the plural.
- dspillett 5y agoThe way I've explained the correctness of the plural use to a non-native speaker, is that (to use the cats example) there is one group of cats, the group is singular even though its content is plural, so “there is” is correct, therefore so is the contraction. Not explicitly mentioning the group is just another abbreviation, because it is implicitly understood. This avoids the discussion of whether “there are → there's” is valid in written form (which tends to be more strict than verbal use).
- CRConrad 5y ago> “There’s” is a contraction for either “there is” or “there are” But doesn't con-traction mean "pulling together"? You pull the last letter over towards the first ones, squishing out the ones between. Only there is no 's' at the end of "there are" to pull over next to "there". So "there's" can't really be a contraction of "there are", AFAICS. > Written contractions are meant to faithfully represent spoken English, in which people indeed say “there’s” for both the singular and the plural. Sure, it may be a perfectly valid usage, so it's something... But as matter of terminology, whatever that something is, I don't think it's a contraction.
- travisd 5y agoI think out loud you'd be more likely to hear "here're your donuts" rather than "here's your donuts"), but when written, here're looks way worse. Language (written, spoken, and otherwise) is interesting and resistant to fitting into nice, neat, tidy boxes.