was or were?

[ninad...@gmail.com]

I stumbled upon this sentence in an article on bbc sport. The sentence
is

.........There was a lot of people who acted on anger...

When I first read it, my immediate reaction was that there should've
been 'were' instead
of 'was'. In fact, many of my friends thought the same way. But, I
think 'was' is correct because of the subsquent 'a'. But in this case
what is the exact meaning of 'lot'. What does one mean when he or she
says--'I've lots of book'?
In the previous para is it correct to say-- lot of my friends, ie, can
we use 'a lot' instead of 'many'?

ninad

[gnenian]

Sounds like a mass - quantifier ? - and not a count quantifier (that
can be counted = many = were )

There were many people who acted on anger

Never - *There were a many people who acted on anger.

A lot of my friends..
Many of my friends..

never - *A many of my friends

[gnenian]

Although the sentences

There was many a man who acted on anger
There was many a friend of mine there

are correct. But that is probably because 'many a' is a phrase? or
something

[Don Phillipson]

<ninad...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1139690246.2...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

> I stumbled upon this sentence in an article on bbc sport. The sentence
> is
>
> .........There was a lot of people who acted on anger...
>
> When I first read it, my immediate reaction was that there should've
> been 'were' instead of 'was'. In fact, many of my friends thought the
> same way. But, I think 'was' is correct because of the subsquent 'a'.

1 "There is" and "There was" are equally OK from the
grammatical point of view.
2. Existential statements like this are usually unnecessary,
thus bad style, cf. here "A lot of people acted on anger..."
The colloquial "a lot" suggests this may have been an oral
comment transcribed later.

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

[Stephen Calder]

Don Phillipson wrote:

"A lot of" always takes a plural in such a context (i.e. with a count
noun) in my variety. The singular would sound quite wrong in:

A lot of people were there.
There were a lot of people there.
There were a lot of cars parked outside.

But

There was a lot of work to do. (non-count noun).

--
Stephen
Lennox Head, Australia

[CDB]

<ninad...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1139690246.2...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

It depends on what you want to say. "A lot of Xs" with the plural
verb means "many Xs"; with the singular, it means "a parcel of Xs", "a
number of Xs considered as a unit". One lot of my friends acts on
anger, another lot is cooler-headed. I think that, in this case, you
want the plural verb.

[David Picton]

"A lot" can mean "many" or "much", depending on the context.

"I did a lot of work yesterday" (a lot of=much)

"I have read a lot of books recently (a lot of=many)

When "a lot" means "many", a plural verb would normally be used.

This reminds me of a closely related issue - is it correct to say
"there is a number of ..." or "there are a number of ..."? I seem to
recall that the singular verb used to be regarded as correct, but this
seems to have changed. Fowler's English Usage says the following

number, as a noun of multitude in the type 'a number of + pl. noun',
normally governs a plural verb in BrE and AmE.