Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[jani]

Hi,

" There ________ no chair and no desk in this room."

Should the answer be "is" or "are"?


Thanks and look for your reply.

Shirley

[lotus]

Hi Shirley,

The answer is "is" because each item is singular. If you change the items to plural, you may use "are."

There are no chairs and no desks in this room.
There are neither chairs nor desks in this room.

If a room was extremely small, or if it was an office (where you expected only one chair and one desk in the room), you might say:

There is no chair and no desk in this room!

However, most the time you hear "There are no chairs and no tables in this room." This is more common because rooms with tables are more common than rooms with desks.


--lotus