Are there any dogs in the room?
0 voters
Which is the preferred usage? Does it make a difference if only the short answer is used or if both the short answer (Yes, there is/Yes, there are) and the long answer (There is one dog in the room) are used? What say you?
I believe the preferred local usage is ‘Here have’. In my ideolect however, ‘Yes, there are’ is the correct answer.
I think if there were only one dog, I’d be likely to say “Yes, there’s one dog,” or something similar. I don’t think I would answer with either “Yes, there is” or “Yes, there are.”
“Yes.”
Yes, there is. There is only one. One cannot be are. The question is asked in pure innocence, and so can be forgiven for being are, whereas the answer is in the knowledge already that there is only one.
“Yes, there is a (or one) dog in the room.”
“Yes, there IS,” with a stress on “IS” because if you said “are” the listener would likely envision more than one dog. “Any” is ambiguous as to number. One is any. Two is any. That is the problem. The answer lies in resolving the ambiguity that exists in the question by clarifying in the response.
For a short answer I’d use either “Yes” or “Yes there ARE.” The inquirer is concerned with the existence of any dogs in the room, not the quantity of those dogs. “Yes there is,” answers the wrong question.
Looking for a definitive answer when a question is posed out of context or in isolation makes me crazy. My adult students do that to me all the time. They will ask which of two partial phrases is correct. I tell them I need to know the complete sentence or context to be able to answer and this surprises them.
If there is only 1 dog in the room and I know there is only 1 dog in the room, then yes there is. If there is 1 or more dogs in the room, but I don’t have any idea if there is 1 or more than 1, a situation I can’t imagine, then I’d answer yes there are.
rhetorical=are, literal=is
If you’re speaking rhetorically about the existance of k-9 life in the room, “yes, there are” is fine. If you are asking a literal question and there is only one dog in the room, then the grammar of the answer should match the reality that the response relates, so the answer, “yes, there is” is better. I bet none of these answers helps at all. That’s because we can do this kind of shorting in conversation and still be fluently communicative, but on paper this stuff just gums right up!
Is.
that said, if i’m in the room, then it has to be are.
salty nuts,
Yes, there are a problem in that response.
[quote=“CraigTPE”]Looking for a definitive answer when a question is posed out of context or in isolation makes me crazy. My adult students do that to me all the time. They will ask which of two partial phrases is correct. I tell them I need to know the complete sentence or context to be able to answer and this surprises them.
If there is only 1 dog in the room and I know there is only 1 dog in the room, then yes there is. If there is 1 or more dogs in the room, but I don’t have any idea if there is 1 or more than 1, a situation I can’t imagine, then I’d answer yes there are.[/quote]
There is one dog in the room. You, the enquiree, know that there is one dog in the room and have been asked if there are any.
That’s the context.
In that context it is clear what the “correct” answer is, logically. In actual speech people would likely mix it up pretty badly.
As a former ESL teacher long repatriated to an English-speaking land, allow me to chime in: neither option in the poll is conventional.
The two conventionally acceptable responses are:
though the first response, in some contexts, would be considered somewhat evasive by the enquirer should said enquirer eventually learn that there was indeed only one dog in the room. So, the best response would be number 2.
Having said that, if there were multiple dogs in the room then “Yes, there are” would be conventional. And if the question were “Is there a dog in the room?” then “Yes, there is” would be conventional. In addition, if the question were “Is there a dog in the room?” and there were five dogs, then the correct answer would be “Yes, there are several.”
Woof.
What if there are exactly zero dogs in the room?
There aren’t any dogs in the room.
So, when any means zero, it’s counted as more than one…
Hullo/Hello/Hallo,
Maoman I hope you aren’t teaching stock answers to stupid questions down at your school!
Q: Are there any dogs in the room?
Ans: Take a look for yourself, fool.
There is no perfect answer to the is/are debate. Some use is, some use are. Example, which is correct: A) The next couple is… B) The next couple are…
People need to communicate, thats the main thing.
All these answers are ok in my book…
The worst case scenario is students who say nothing because they don’t want to say anything other than ‘perfect’ English, which we all know is a myth created by the evil Asian language Gods, who, by the way are all white. English is a beautiful example of a metamorphic language which contains many grey/ gray (lol) areas.
That’s no dog. That’s my wife, you impudent goddamn whelp. Now get back to your Englishee studies before I take my hand aff yer face, ye cheeky wee besom.
[quote=“rousseau”]As a former ESL teacher long repatriated to an English-speaking land, allow me to chime in: neither option in the poll is conventional.
The two conventionally acceptable responses are:
though the first response, in some contexts, would be considered somewhat evasive by the enquirer should said enquirer eventually learn that there was indeed only one dog in the room. So, the best response would be number 2.
Having said that, if there were multiple dogs in the room then “Yes, there are” would be conventional. And if the question were “Is there a dog in the room?” then “Yes, there is” would be conventional. In addition, if the question were “Is there a dog in the room?” and there were five dogs, then the correct answer would be “Yes, there are several.”
Woof.[/quote]
Anyway, there would be some clarification.
“Yup. One,” would be good.
I agree with the use of either. “Yes, there is [one]” is just answering the question further than required.
No.
The question is ambiguous because “any” is ambiguous. The answer isn’t ambiguous. If you say “yes there are” and complete the sentence (which the listener does automatically - in his head) you have to say “Yes, there ARE beerS in the fridge.” It isn’t correct. There ARE NOT beerS in the fridge. There IS “a” beer in the fridge, or a dog somehwere, or some freaking thing…