Wordy Wednesday: Expletive Sentences

What? Karianne is going to talk about expletives?? This seems so out of character. 

No folks, I am not referring to the kind of expletives you are most likely thinking of. I'm talking about the type of sentences that begin with "there is" or "there are."

For example, let's look at the following sentence: "There is a water bottle on my desk." This sentences portrays an example of expletive construction.

Believe me, you will see people using this type of sentence construction all. the. time. And while these sentences are not technically "wrong," they do reflect poor, lazy, and ambiguous writing.

You see, "there" is acting as a subject but doesn't have a clear antecedent and is essential just a filler work. A more clear way of writing the previous example sentence is to write "I keep a water bottle on my desk."

This diagrammed example is from mrclements.com (another great post).

Where did "there is" go?

Away.

Do we miss it?

No. 

Is the sentence more clear?

Yes, although the above example is not a great example. 

Do we have to figure out whether "there is" or "there are" is the correct usage? (Based on subject-verb agreement)

No. We've eliminated the poor usage, made the sentence stronger, and avoided the issue. 


So why do we keep using those darn expletives?!?! :)

Go ahead and take a look at Grammar Girl's well-researched explanation of the usage. She has some great examples and dives in a bit deeper than I do here.

P.S. The topic of expletive sentence construction was one that I first learned about in my business communications class in college. Sigh, that was one of my favorite classes. Good times, good times.