There's a number of reasons the grammar of this headline could infuriate you

Blame our shifting definitions of the singular and the plural

Writing teacher
(Image credit: Illustration by Sarah Eberspacher | Photo courtesy Thinkstock)

There's a number of reasons this sentence could be right. But do you think it is?

It's not uncommon; the set of words "there's a number of reasons" gets almost 3 million hits on Google. But the phrase "there are a number of reasons" returns more than 63 million results. And perhaps the least natural-sounding possibility, "there is a number of reasons," gets even more hits: About 73 million.

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James Harbeck

James Harbeck is a professional word taster and sentence sommelier (an editor trained in linguistics). He is the author of the blog Sesquiotica and the book Songs of Love and Grammar.