There IS/ARE?

raisingfink,

I'm American and I can definitely say most of us say "an hour" not "a hour."

In fact...."a hour" just sounds bad....like you said, it's a vowel sound.

mjd,
Sorry. Yes, I'm sure most use "an hour". But I've come across quite a number of articles written by Americans that use "a hour". It's just an observation. Cheers.

I know it's proper, but I still have trouble saying "an historical". I find myself dropping the "h", which is silly, because "h" dropping is not a part of my accent at all, (nor any American accent I can recall).

sorry, raisingfink, I tend to disagree with one of your points:
I often hear "an hour" in AmE, (at least spoken AmE), usually the "n" is soft and slurred into the "hour".

oops, didn't turn the page. Ignore the last post.

'I know it's proper, but I still have trouble saying "an historical". I find myself dropping the "h", which is silly, because "h" dropping is not a part of my accent at all, (nor any American accent I can recall).'

That is a popular misconception. The use of 'an' before H was introduced to aid pronunciation, and was only intended informally. 'A historical' is in fact the proper form.

I forgot to mention that 'hour' is an exception, because the H is not pronounced in modern English.

Hi newcomer

So see your sentences:

1. There IS a hospital, a restaurant and two big shops in that street.
or
2. There ARE a hospital, a restaurant and two big shops in that street

here is my response:

1) (There is) is imployed at the singular and (there are) at the plurial.

Exemple1: there is one chair in my house ( it exists only one chair in my house)

exemple2: there are two children in the garden (I see only two children in the garden)

So the rule is: object plurial, you say : there are. For instance: there are always many people during summer in paris.

object singular, you say: there is. For exemple: there is only new day in year.

Some native speakers of English say:

"There is two dogs in the picture."

I always wince when I hear something like that. Can't those fellows remember that they're speaking English and not French?

Myriescence -
You mean I've been saying it properly all this time and didn't know it? Who'd have thought.. :-)