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Which one is correct - "There is only us here". or "There are only us here."

I am dubious between these two ways of referring to the situation where there are only to people in a place or area.
Just had a debate about this with a friend lol I'm pretty sure its the first one :smile:
they both sound a bit clunky.... i would write "We are the only ones here"...
The English language is full of exceptions to rules. To say it must be X because of Y does not work in our esoteric language.

Whilst there is only they would not work, there is only them perhaps does work. The change from the subjective case (they) to the objective case (them) makes a whole world of difference. Why is this the case that objective them could even work in that sentence when you consider them is supposedly the subject of that sentence? Our language is fantastically dreadful.
(edited 8 years ago)
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Avatar for Nolla
Nolla
Original post by callum_law
Our language is fantastically dreadful.

I can confirm :biggrin: English is a second language to me so I've spent the last 3 years trying to learn these fun exceptions.

But why would it be the first? "Us" is a plural so shouldn't you use "are" instead of "is"? "There is only 2 two people here"?
Anyway, please do enlighten me.
Original post by Moisés
I am dubious between these two ways of referring to the situation where there are only to people in a place or area.

there is only us here
Original post by Nolla
I can confirm :biggrin: English is a second language to me so I've spent the last 3 years trying to learn these fun exceptions.

But why would it be the first? "Us" is a plural so shouldn't you use "are" instead of "is"? "There is only 2 two people here"?
Anyway, please do enlighten me.


Simply, there is no reason why the plural could be used; that is the point I was making. Perhaps the OED needs an update wherein it acknowledges the sense of there used as a dummy non-personal pronoun (in the style of it).

One thing is clear is that the debate and discussion OP has had regarding this issue is due to a level of accepted use. For example, there is us verbatim has over 11,000,000 Google results whereas there are us verbatim has fewer than 350,000 results. More reliable authoritative corpora suggest a similar trend, also.
Reply 7
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Jenx301
19
I'd say "there's only us here" so the first one I guess

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