"There is a plethora..." or "There are a plethora..."? [duplicate]

Question

A simple question that has sparked some debate, and I couldn't find a concrete answer anywhere. There seems to be two camps: The word plethora indicates plural, so therefore it should be "There are a plethora"; and the other camp says that there is only one plethora (which contains multiple), so it should be "There is a plethora".

I've seen many examples of both. Is there a consensus, or is it just one of those things that can go either way?

Answer 1

This look at the matter of the grammatical plurality of single groups of plural items is well worth reading in full.

To summarise:

1. Some do hold it must always be singular.
2. Both can be found, from the middle of the 18th Century on.
3. The plural is the more commonly used, has been for some time, and its relative popularity is growing.
4. Respected writers who use the plural include Charles Batteux, William Hazlitt, John Keats, William Makepeace Thakeray and Mark Twain. (John Keats' was once considered a grammatical rebel for such things as the double be in "...how diligent I have been, & am being", but I doubt many would even notice why that was considered bad grammar by some in the nineteenth century. Mark Twain made heavy use of non-standard forms, but that was a conscious use and he was not doing so in the example).

I'll also note that John Cowan (who often remembers such things) is quoted thus:

J.R.R. Tolkien once received a letter (addressed to "any Professor of English Language") asking him about the rectitude of "A large number of walls is/are being built", and saying that "big money" was riding on the issue. He answered, of course, that you can say what you like. His original reply is not in print AFAIK, but a letter to someone else referencing it is in The Letters of JRRT.

My own opinion, is that the singular is easily understood as attaching to the noun that describes the group, just as the plural is easily understood as attaching to the individual members of the group. Neither clash horribly for most readers, though some do hold strong opinions.

My own use doesn't even side firmly with one or the other (my preferences here are given not as prescriptive decrees, but using myself as an example to demonstrate that usage may not even be firmly on one side or the other with a given individual).

If a phrase clearly refers to the individuals, I would strongly favour the plural:

The group of protesters were holding placards.

Some clearly to the group:

The group of protesters was twice the size as an hour ago.

Many could be interpreted either way:

The group of protesters was/were blocking the entrance.

In which I am likely to just mentally place in one of the first two categories, and write accordingly. Note that even with the first two, my strongly favouring one or the other does not mean I find other choices to be incorrect in others' writing.

From what I say above, you might expect that I would always favour the singular if the individuals aren't mentioned (even if I wouldn't "correct" another for doing otherwise):

There was a plethora.

The plethora of piñatas was/were gaily coloured.

But a group almost always at least suggests its members, and this question deals with one example of that, but there are others.

There are technical contexts where I would much more strongly suggest that expressions specific to the group or to the individuals be distinguished: The distinction between sets and their items in mathematics, or between collections and their contents in object oriented computer programming. Even here, I wouldn't so much say that a given form was wrong, just that there is a heavy benefit for precision and often you are working to help readers understand that very distinction, so an extra bit of prissiness may pay off.

Answer 2

A plethora is singular, so one must say "there is a plethora of..." just as one would say "there is a bunch..."

If you are dealing in several plethoras, you could use the plural: "there are plethoras of..." but this feels very contrived and artificial.

Answer 3

There IS A whole bunch of reasons why you need to pay attention to encapsulation and collectives.

• There is a {ton of bananas} in the truck.
• There is a {whole ton of bananas} in the truck.
• There is a {bag of cloves} that I bought.
• There is a {box of cigarettes}.
• This is a {list of people} I am inviting.
• There is a {collection of artwork of various genres} in the warehouse.
• It is three days' {work} to finish painting the house.

We have to look at he complex noun phrase as a whole. This is the super noun encapsulation. If there is only one collection, then there is only one collection. Regardless if there are many members in that singular collection.

There is {singular complex noun}.
There are {plural complex noun}.

The following is a plural noun phrase encapsulated by a singular noun phrase:

There IS my {having to deal with two hundred people who ARE attending the party} that IS giving me a headache.

If we address the singular collection, we have to look at that collection as the singularised entity. If we wish to address the items (of the singular collective) in plural, we have to get rid of the collective encapsulation:

• There is a whole lot of people feeling depressed about the Patriots' failure to reach the Super Bowl.
• There is a lot of people feeling depressed about the Patriots' failure to reach the Super Bowl.
• There are lots of people feeling depressed about the Patriots' failure to reach the Super Bowl.
• There are many people feeling depressed about the Patriots' failure to reach the Super Bowl.

Contractor: How many boxes of framing nails did you buy?
Peon: I bought only one box.
Angry Contractor: Do you mean to say there IS only ONE box of framing nails?
Unrepentant Peon: There are plenty nails in a box
Angry Contractor: There is also one whole load of studs to frame. There are another two loads coming in.