There is / are .....

[LarryLatham]

I do not take issue with you in principle, William. As I said before, it is commendable that you feel you ought to be grammatical in your approach to language, and, for that matter, that you want to teach your students to be grammatical too.

But I appeal to you as a scholar to take a second look at such constructions as, "There is some eggs." and, "Can I have a coffee?" These are not, in my opinion, ungrammatical, and you will surely do your students no harm to explore these sentences with them. Quite the contrary. A deeper understanding of this area will enhance their English skills (and maybe yours). While I imagine there may be some controversy over this, I'm willing to bet I'd have a lot of support from some very heavy hitters in academia. Please consider again the notion of what is grammatical and what is not. I assure you that just because some textbook on English grammar makes an assertion about what is correct, that is by no means the last word on the subject, especially nowadays with the availability of corpus-based information about English.

Larry Latham

[Lorikeet]

But it is unbearable to teach my students something ungrammatical, such as, “There is some eggs.” and “Can I have a coffee?”

What's wrong with "Can I have a coffee?" Coffee becomes countable because we talking about a cup of it, not generic coffee. In fact, it's the cup that's countable, not the coffee, but native speaker miss out that information because it's understood.

Iain

I understand what you are saying Iain, and I have changed my view a bit in recent years, because it's true that people now use "a coffee" "a beer" "a coke" etc. in speaking. I tell my students the language acceptability rules are changing, but if they take a TOEFL test they should be sure to choose the "a cup of coffee" example I think we often avoid this construction by using "some" as in , "I'd like some water, please." For some reason, "I'd like a water." sounds worse than "I'd like a coke."

For the record, William, I would never teach "There's some eggs." either. That's only an interesting element to me because I can see that the language is changing. However, it is nowhere near acceptability. It's just funny to hear yourself slip and say something like that and realize what's happening. Maybe in a hundred years....

[William]

Hi all,

I am really glad to receive different replies from all of you. It is amazing to discuss some English issues with native speakers.

Since I am only teaching children (for now) , I believe it is better to stick with the traditional grammar rules first to avoid confusion. Once my students develop adequate knowledge in English, they can have their freedom in writing.

William

[LarryLatham]

Okay, William,

I do agree with you there. It's not that children wouldn't get it, quite the opposite. I'm convinced that children get it easier than adult learners do. However, I wouldn't even begin to know how to approach discussion, or even 'exploration' with children. All my language work has been with adults. Maybe someone else, here, who has experience working with children would have a point-of-view we all could profit from. For now, however, I think your position is valid, William.

Larry Latham--a native person (You might have meant to say: native speaker.)

[dduck]

From what I've learned, heard, noticed from real life, children don't have discussions, they have story telling time. They love to listen to stories and repeat / answer questions about what happened to the nasty wolf, or the beautiful princess.

Iain

[szwagier]

I believe it was in one of the Headway series, about 9 years ago, I saw a sentence attributed to Linda McCartney:

"Breakfast is eggs."

Is that a grammatical sentence or not? And what about:

"Eggs are breakfast"?

I firmly believe that a Cosmic Censor should hurl such utterances into a black hole, never to be seen, heard, or thought about, again.

[dduck]

You not like eggs then?

Iain

[szwagier]

Eggs is fine

[dduck]

"Breakfast is eggs."

Is that a grammatical sentence or not? And what about:

"Eggs are breakfast"?

They sound a little strange, but I think they're both grammatical.

More natural sounding is "Today's breakfast is bacon and eggs. "Bacon and eggs" is a lexical element, I don't see any reason why we can't use eggs alone.

We can say quite happily "Eggs are food", so why not the noun, "breakfast"?

Iain

[LarryLatham]

More natural sounding [emphasis mine] is "Today's breakfast is bacon and eggs. "

Pshaw!
Never in the course of many years with my mother and my wife have I ever heard either of them say anything like that! Ho, ho, ho. Nor, on the occasions when I have cooked breakfast (often of bacon and eggs) have I ever uttered it either. You're spending entirely too much time in Spain, Iain.

Larry Latham

[dduck]

Restauranteurs say things like "Today's Special is X", so it looks to me that "Today's Breakfast is Bacon and Eggs" is very close to that and hence more natural sounding than "Breakfast is Eggs".

What I originally meant was that Bacon and Eggs is more likely to be breakfast than just eggs.

Iain

[LarryLatham]

Um...mmmm... <<said with mirth and joviality>>

I think you're on dangerous ground there Iain if you're suggesting that the English you hear from restauranteurs is anything like "natural".

How about "Breakfast is eggs and bacon", then?

Larry Latham

[dduck]

Larry, I really don't see why you're laughing your head off. I've suggested that there's nothing grammatically wrong with it. You countered with "it sounds so wrong". If you think it's wrong, explain to me please, why you think that. Just because you've not met it before isn't sufficient reason to discount it.

Our favorite Stone Way breakfast is eggs over easy with home fries, bacon or sausage, and a biscuit--a homemade, two-inch-high fluffy number.

Iain

[wjserson]

Not to change the subject , but back when we (or you) were discussing the grammatical merit of the sentence "There is some ham and some eggs." (I think it was eggs), we spent quite a bit of time explaining why it was completely acceptable.

I completely agree that this sentence is grammatically correct, the reason being that "ham", in the sense of cooked meat, is usually used as an uncountable. If we were to change to the other option given "There are some ham and some eggs." the verb 'to be' conjugated plurally ("are") would only apply to "hams" correct? And as a native speaker, I can honestly say that "There are some hams and some eggs." means something completely different semantically. We would then be talking about entire units of uncut meat or the animals themselves, like turkeys and chickens, instead of examples given in previous postings such as "bacon".

I do believe that semantics are another way to justify the fact that the original sentences given in the first example are grammatically correct. To alter "is" to "are" changes the meaning altogether.

But then, everything you guys already pointed out was certainly proof enough (aka Larry, Iain, etc)

[LarryLatham]

Loosen up, guys.

I totally agree with you about the grammatical acceptability of these sentences. Totally. What I am poking my elbow into your ribs about, Iain, is your assertion, a few posts ago, that:

Today's breakfast is bacon and eggs.

is a "natural" sounding sentence. My intention was merely to pull your chain a bit in good natured fun. I say things like that all the time too, and then wonder where they came from.

So...ease up. This was never meant as a serious critique.

Larry Latham