Verb + thousands of

Question

There's been thousands of problems with it.

Or

There have been thousands of problems with it.

Which one is correct? I feel like there's something different because of thousands in the sentence cause without it:

There have been problems with the system.

Sound more correct than:

There has been problems with the system.

Am I right?

Also, isn't there've been a correct abbreviation?

There have been is the correct version. However, because there've is not particularly easy to say, it's quite common for people to say there's been in casual speech. — Kate Bunting, Dec 15 '21 at 17:45
I'm not sure how there've is any harder to say than there's; yet one is correct & the other illiterate. — DoneWithThis., Dec 15 '21 at 18:52
@gonefishin'again. Exactly , I used to think it exists and is correct, until now. — JOUA, Dec 15 '21 at 19:20
Does this answer your question? There's vs There are. Also Using "there is" with plural nouns and The use of "there is" and "there's" and Can we use "there is" for plural nouns?, among others. — FumbleFingers, Dec 16 '21 at 13:22
@gonefishin'again.: There's nothing "illiterate" about saying things like *There've been a few problems* (commonly enunciated as single-syllable *Th've). It's just that we tend not to write* that particular abbreviation. — FumbleFingers, Dec 16 '21 at 13:27
@gonefishin'again.: Am I misunderstanding your "one is correct & the other illiterate"? — FumbleFingers, Dec 16 '21 at 13:29
@FumbleFingers - it would appear so. I use them in the same order in each half of the sentence, so one applies to the former, the other to the latter. — DoneWithThis., Dec 16 '21 at 13:31
oic. Personally, I don't like the idea that just because *There's a couple of beers in the fridge* seems to violate some people's ideas about plurality it should be classified as "incorrect". I'm with Prof John Lawler on this one: *There doesn't need to be any number agreement for the existential construction.* — FumbleFingers, Dec 16 '21 at 13:38

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 15 '21 at 18:48

Singular/plural must match.

There has been a problem.

There have been problems. There have been thousands of problems.

Anything more than one is plural.

It so frequently mis-used in speech & popular culture that many people don't even recognise it's wrong when the TV is singing it right at them.

There's millions says Geoffrey all under one roof, it's called Toys Я Us, Toys Я Us, Toys Я Us

It used to hurt every time I heard it… & I used to work in Toys Я Us, so that hurt a lot :\
If you remove the abbreviation, then it becomes "there is millions" which is truly illiterate for a native.

Though it's passable colloquially, I would keep 'there've' for informal speech. It's fine, but it's not really something to use in written language.

I agree. In Standard English, "there have" must be shortened to there've. But as a native, I'm familiar with people saying there's instead. That's the tip of the iceberg for spoken English in the UK. I remember Henning Wehn told a joke about how he spent time learning verb conjugations, got to London and discovered locals saying "I was, you was, she was, we was, they was." Some of it is regional speech. It's not taught in schools or used for formal writing. Local people learn it by imitating each other. But I wouldn't say it's illiterate when it's colloquial, intelligible and occurs naturally. — AnonFNV, Dec 16 '21 at 14:25

Verb + thousands of

1 Answers1