usage - "there doesn't seem" vs. "there don't seem"


As an example, consider the two sentences:



There don't seem to be any doctors here.



and



There doesn't seem to be any doctors here.



To my ear, the first sounds great, and the second is painfully awkward.


So which is correct, grammatically? I've found lots of disagreement on this around the Web, with various sources citing different ways of treating the word "any" (as singular, always, or as either depending on to what it refers). No consensus, however, could I locate.



Answer



The relevant article in ‘The Cambridge Guide to English Usage’ says:



Existential there couples with either singular or plural verbs (there is / there are, according to the following noun phrase) . . . This formal agreement is strictly maintained in academic writing. But in narrative and everyday writing, there is and especially there’s is found even with plural nouns.



The same consideration applies to There don’t and There doesn’t. What it means for your examples is that it all depends on the context in which they are being used. In practice, such a sentence would almost certainly be spoken rather than written, making the choice unimportant. If the second is likely to damage your hearing, then don’t use it, and stay away from those who do.


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