Grammar – Can ‘There’ in ‘There Be’ Be Replaced by an Actual Place?

grammargrammaticalitygrammaticality-in-context

I took this sentence from Oxford Grammar:

In the bath was the biggest spider I had ever seen.

I had always thought that the construction there + be is united before reading this example. I would have thought it should be written like this:

In the bath, there was the biggest spider I had ever seen.

However, I'm not sure whether it's a typo that the book has or I've just misunderstood all this time.

Best Answer

In that construction "there" can be omitted, and often is.

  • In the room was a very tall man.
  • On the porch were two window-boxes.
  • In the parking lot was a purple car.
  • In the store were all manner of books.
Related Topic