I recently heard a story on a national radio program that began with this line: “There’s tales, there’s tall tales, and then there’s super-sized tales.” Too bad there’s no agreement between the subjects and verbs in that sentence.

I’ve noticed this error a lot lately. When using the word “there’s” - the contraction for “there is” - some writers are failing to consider the number of the subject that follows the singular verb “is.”

In the example above, “tales” is a plural subject, so it requires a plural verb; in this case, the word “are.” The contractions should be dropped and the sentence re-written this way: There are tales, there are tall tales, and then there are super-sized tales.

Contractions can help your writing sound more natural. Just remember to consider the number of the verb you’re contracting and the subject that follows it.