My 5 year old daughters English homework.. She wrote "There were once three brothers.. " is it right?

Question

My daughter wrote "There were once three brothers, called....." and this was corrected by her teacher to "there was once three brothers...."
I think this is wrong, and that the original sentence was correct, but don't know why. I am assuming that it is "were " as the brothers are plural. The teacher says if "once" is in a sentence it always becomes "was". I don't mind if I am right or wrong, but want to tell my daughter WHY, one way or another....
Any idea's???

Answer 1

I would agree with you,
"There were once three brothers "
OR
"There was once a man".
Plural = were
singular = was.
Perhaps,
"Once there were three brothers", would be better
Ask the teacher to explain it again.

Answer 2

There are a couple reasons I believe that your child was correct (and quite creative, if I may add). First, collective nouns, such as "brothers," take a singular verb when they refer to the group as a unit and take a plural verb when they refer to an individual or a part of the group. Your daughter, I believe, used "brothers" as individuals (plural) with three serving as an adjective to tell how many. Your daughter's sentence was correct in that case with "were" being the correct verb form to be used: "Brothers were" vs. "Brother was." "Once" is being used as a subordinating conjunction to modify and connect meaning. She could just as easily have said, "Once there were three brothers," or "There were three brothers once." The meaning of the sentence changes with the second sentence, but it does not affect the subject/predicate structure. "Once" simply modifies the verb. Confusing. I also think that your daughter was using her hand at a twist to the tried and true "Once upon a time...," which she did very well. The teacher may want to give the kid a break, but I used to teach too.
I have never heard, nor could I find in a review of my texts, anything about the word "once" becoming "was." If I am wrong, I would appreciate being enlightened.
Keep encouraging the writing - she has promise! That is what to focus on, and if she understands grammar, all the better!
Good luck.

Answer 3

This is one of those questions you can't stop yourself from answering!

It should always be 'there were three brothers'. It doesn't matter if you add 'once' to the sentence or anything else! It doesn't matter where you add the 'once' either. The person who said that in this case 'once' is an adverb is quite right - and using an adverb does not affect the form of the verb.

Look at it another way - how about the phrase 'There was often a problem with ...'. You don't say 'There were often a problem with..' just because 'often' means it happened more than once.

Tell your daughter her story's great, and have a quiet word with the teacher at the next parents' evening.

Answer 4

Sorry to only just got into this question. It has to be 'were' as this refers to the three brothers. If you changed the sentence to 'once there were three brothers' it would be 'were' - changing the order of the sentence makes no difference to the use of the plural - sorry, teacher, you are wrong!
I'm amazed at your daughter's use of english - well done!

Answer 5

My Microsoft Word spellcheck unerlines the 'was' if I put your sentence that way. If I use 'were' then it doesn't highlight the word. I think teachers are generally right and there might be something I'm missing here as I would have put 'were' in this sentence. The 'were' doesn't refer to the one. The 'were' refers to the brothers' existence in whatever place the story is set in. 'You were once a child' of 'You was once a child' - which one would you go for? I would go for the first one. I really don't know now. You've confused me!!!! Have a word with the teacher and let us know the outcome!!!

Answer 6

Once there were three brothers - true
Once upon a time there were three brothers - true

Its how you are grouping the nouns and adjectives.

ONCE occurs only at one time so WAS is the correct usuage in the way the sentence is constructed and WERE is false as it is plural...

You can swap the Once forward to start the sentence and then the use of were is correct as there are three brothers..

Once there were three brothers - true

Once there was three brothers - false

Answer 7

You are right the teacher is wrong. Try changing the order of the words. . . 'Once there were three brothers' as opposed to 'Once there was three brothers' the verb applies to the brothers, clearly a plural, and not the moment in time, clearly a singular.

You say 'there was a man' or 'there were some men' the once is put in as an adverb and does not alter the verb itself.

Answer 8

I think both your Daughter and Teacher are correct. It depends on what context they are writing about. your Daughter has made a sentence that is grammatically correct because she may have it in her mind that she had three brothers and now another one has been born. I'd recommend that the teacher goes back to class but that may not be beneficial.

Answer 9

I don't think that "once" is the operative word. I have never heard of such a rule.

"Was" and "were" in a sentence are generally made to agree with the subject, which in this case is the plural word brothers. As such, were is the correct word.

You would never say "there was three brothers." You would say "there were three brothers." Once modifies "were" by telling a little bit more...(when? once!). The teacher is wrong

Answer 10

If in doubt, try rewriting the sentence:

Once upon a time there were three brothers (were refers to the plural brothers)
There was a time when there were three brothers (was refers to the singular time)

BUT - once upon a time there was a cat, a rat and a snake (was refers to each animal individually. Not perhaps grammatically correct but in story-telling good grammar can get shunted sideways in favour of rhythm and scansion)

Answer 11

The teacher is wrong. Rearrange the sentence to read, "Once upon a time there were three brothers..." The "were" is pluralized by the "three" not singularized by the "once".