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In this type of sentence, do I use is or are?

Why __ there tens of thousands of dead women and children?

I'm assuming are because tens of thousands, women, and children imply the plural. Thanks.

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  • “Tens of thousands … looks plural!
    – Gio
    Commented May 21 at 6:53
  • See Why are there more of them ... vs Why is there more of them ..., itself closed as a duplicate of There are so many ... vs There is so many ... (with a nod to 'There's so many ....'). Commented May 21 at 9:42
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    In constructions which have the dummy word there as subject, the verb usually agree with the noun phrase to its right. So, here that would be the plural form are. However, in speech (and in some not very formal writing) it is grammatical in modern English to use singular agreement in such cases as long as the verb is cliticised onto the subject - in other words as long as we see "There's two" and not "There is two". Commented May 22 at 12:29

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