English, like most languages, has a special construction used to point out the existence of something. This type of sentence is constructed using there plus some form of the verb be (or a similar verb like seem or appear). For example, you might call your server's attention to a fly floating in your soup by saying, "Waiter! There is a fly in my soup!"

In sentences that begin with There is or There was, the subject is not in its normal position. Instead, it follows the verb. In our sentence about the soup, for example, the verb (is) agrees with the subject that follows it (fly):

There is a fly in my soup.

Subject-verb agreement errors occur in this type of sentence when the subject is plural but the preceding verb is singular. Why do such errors occur? The problem is a conflict between casual spoken English and the more formal requirements of the written language. When speaking English, we tend to use a singular verb, there is (present tense) or there was (past tense), even when the subject following it may be plural.

EXAMPLE 1
Plural Subject Follows a Singular Verb
Error:

There is a smillion stories in every big city.

Correction:


There are a million stories in every big city.

EXAMPLE 2
Plural Subject Follows a Singular Verb
Error:

There was dozens of books piled on the couch.

Correction:


There were dozens of books piled on the couch.

Look at the two example sentences above. If you heard those two sentences in a casual conversation, odds are you might not have noticed that they were actually ungrammatical.