Anonymous wrote:To the people arguing about has/have and "a ton": "a ton" is a plural, because it is a specific measurement greater than 1. Just as you would say, "There have been 10 posts on this" or "there have been 100 posts on this" or "there have been a million posts on this," you would also say "there have been a ton of posts on this." The only time you would use "has" would be if there had only been a single post on the subject: "there has only been one post."

So, yes, the poster was contracting "there has" to "there's" that that is correct. However, the correct phrase would have been "there have been"; therefore, the correct contraction would have been "there've."

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Anonymous wrote:Sick of people who don't know the difference between less and few.

Sick of the "Nursing Nazi" poster.

Hey, there's nothing wrong with nursing your child until he's seven!

Also people who think they're engaging in a clever rhetorical device by mischaracterizing.

Of course I meant that I am sick of people using "Nazi" as a witty insult. Feel free to go ahead and be sick of posters like me who take the words people use seriously.

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Anonymous wrote:PS. There HAVE BEEN tons of threads....(although that's a dubious grammatical construct at best)

not "there's been". ugh.

I'm 18:04; we you correcting me? I said 'there's been a ton of threads,' and I think that's grammatically correct.

'There has been tons' is incorrect. 'There have been tons' is correct.

But i said, "there's been a ton" -- isn't that correct?

NO, it's not, because if you "uncontract" the contraction "there's" it is "there is." And "there is been a ton" is not correct, as you, me, and everyone else can recognize.

Jesus Christ on a Broken Stick, you are WRONG lady.

Your comment is so beyond offensive, I can't believe there's any educated "tolerant" person on DCUM who would write such a thing.

Anonymous wrote:Posters who think it's completely acceptable to make fun of/demean/insult Christianity. And posters who type "um" at the beginning of their posts. And the poster who lives in Arlington yet who posts long diatribes about how crappy the city of Alexandria schools are. And the Holton mom w/Ivy league recruited athlete daughter. The anti-vaccine posters. O.K., I suppose I secretly enjoy the feeling of superiority I get when I read any of these posts!

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Anonymous wrote:Okay, let's settle this contraction thing:

The original 18:04 post was, People who write, "OP, there's been a ton of threads on this..."

Un-contracted, the phrase quoted by this poster would read "OP, there has been a ton of threads on this..." -- and this is correct grammatically. There's = there has. And 'ton' is singular here.

I disagree. I read it as "posts" being modified, not "a ton". In my mind, I replace the colloquial "a ton" with the standard "many". "There HAVE been [many] posts on this topic." Though I can see how grammatically correct people could come to a different conclusion.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PS. There HAVE BEEN tons of threads....(although that's a dubious grammatical construct at best)

not "there's been". ugh.

I'm 18:04; we you correcting me? I said 'there's been a ton of threads,' and I think that's grammatically correct.

'There has been tons' is incorrect. 'There have been tons' is correct.

But i said, "there's been a ton" -- isn't that correct?

NO, it's not, because if you "uncontract" the contraction "there's" it is "there is." And "there is been a ton" is not correct, as you, me, and everyone else can recognize.

Isn't the contraction "there has," not "there is?" Now I am really starting to second-guess my grammatical smarts!

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Anonymous wrote:The crazy anti-vax conspiracy theory woman.

Woooohoooo!!!! I made #1. When do I get my award?

Anonymous wrote:People who don't realize that they're posting to a two year old thread that has been revived by a spammer.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sick of people who don't know the difference between less and few.

Sick of the "Nursing Nazi" poster.

Hey, there's nothing wrong with nursing your child until he's seven!

Also people who think they're engaging in a clever rhetorical device by mischaracterizing.

Of course I meant that I am sick of people using "Nazi" as a witty insult. Feel free to go ahead and be sick of posters like me who take the words people use seriously.