there's no pictures

[BrunaBC]

Hello,

I was watching the movie The Beauty and the Beast from Disney, and in one scene, one of the characters says: How can you read this book? There's no pictures.
According to the grammar it should be there are no pictures, right? So I wonder how common is this kind of "mistake"? (or how common this kind of mistake is?)

Thank you.

 

[MikeNewYork]

Hello,

I was watching the movie The Beauty and the Beast from Disney, and in one scene, one of the characters says: How can you read this book? There's no pictures.
According to the grammar it should be there are no pictures, right? So I wonder how common is this kind of "mistake"? (or how common this kind of mistake is?)

Thank you.

It is a very common mistake.

 

[Chicken Sandwich]

It's not a mistake. There's + plural is acceptable in colloquial speech and not just with no. There's a lot of things I need to do. It is not acceptable, however, to say there is + plural. There are many previous threads on this.

 

[MikeNewYork]

It's not a mistake. There's + plural is acceptable in colloquial speech and not just with no. There's a lot of things I need to do. It is not acceptable, however, to say there is + plural. There are many previous threads on this.

Just because it is common does not make it correct.

 

[5jj]

Just because it is common does not make it correct.

True, but CS said, "There's + plural is acceptable [not correct - 5jj] in colloquial speech" I agree.

 

[Raymott]

Just because it is common does not make it correct.

Just because it's strictly 'incorrect' doesn't make it a mistake.
It's ubiquitous in AusE, and many of us who use it know what a prescriptive grammarian would say of it. But we do it willfully.

 

[tzfujimino]

Just out of curiosity, if you heard a non-native (English learner) say "There's no pictures in this book.", how would you react?

(Please imagine that you are teaching English to ESL students in your class.)

 

[emsr2d2]

I would tell them almost exactly what has been said in this thread. In any exam situation, they must use "There are" before a plural but they should be aware that they will hear "There's" before a plural so frequently in spoken English that they should get used to it and not worry!

 

[Raymott]

Just out of curiosity, if you heard a non-native (English learner) say "There's no pictures in this book.", how would you react?

(Please imagine that you are teaching English to ESL students in your class.)

I'd simply explain that, at her level, she shouldn't need pictures.

 

[Rover_KE]

...and the movie is called '[STRIKE]The[/STRIKE] Beauty and the Beast'.

 

[Tdol]

It's ubiquitous in AusE

And in BrE

 

[Barb_D]

In an amazing coincidence, my Facebook feed (I "like" Disney) yesterday had a picture of Gaston looking at Belle's book and the quote underneath was exactly this one.

 

[MikeNewYork]

I would tell them almost exactly what has been said in this thread. In any exam situation, they must use "There are" before a plural but they should be aware that they will hear "There's" before a plural so frequently in spoken English that they should get used to it and not worry!

I agree with that. If we don't tell them what is correct, they will make mistakes on exams.