There are air and water on earth

[John D]

Aaaawwww Shucks, thanks for that.

[Tdol]

Yeh- nice to meet you, John. :wink:

[Lib]

ages later .... but however. A teacher once told me, many years ago, that if the first thing after there is / are is singular, then we use 'there is' and if the first thing is plural, then we use 'there are'.
There is a cup and two plates. There are two plates and a cup. It may sound strange, but it is logical in a warped sort of way.

[Tdol]

It's logical to me- there are two concepts of plural at work- numerical and grammatical, of which the more important is grammatical.

[RonBee]

A teacher once told me, many years ago, that if the first thing after there ... is singular, then we use 'there is' and if the first thing is plural, then we use 'there are'.

That makes sense.

There is a cup and two plates. There are two plates and a cup.

Those are good examples.

It may sound strange, but it is logical in a warped sort of way.

No, it doesn't sound strange at all. It makes perfect sense.

8)