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There are over 100 new characters in the new show.

There's over 100 new characters in the new show.

I've heard both for some strange reason. There are a few examples on Google books, so I thought it was strange. You should say "there are", but I saw a few examples with "there is over".

Sayaman
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1 Answers1

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"There are" is grammatically correct. The verb and the object should agree in number (both are plural).

"There's" can be a contraction of either "There is" or "There has", neither of which is grammatical in this sentence.

IMO the most likely reason for "There's over 100..." was just a mistake in spoken English. The speaker said "There's" before realizing that the object of the verb was plural.

FWIW There are some rarely used contractions like "when're", "which're", "what're" for "when are, "which are", "what are", etc. I suppose "there're" would fit that pattern, though it is hard to pronounce and doesn't save any space in written English.

alephzero
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    In spoken English using "there's" as a contraction for "there are" is so common as to almost not be an error, in my experience. In standard written English it would never be correct. – randomhead Jul 09 '21 at 04:44