Trouble with a Capital T

Mr. Berghorst, my high school’s brilliant Expository Writing teacher, taught us that to begin a sentence with the word there is lazy and boring. Fightin’ words and one of his personal peeves, but it’s a thing. There—used in the way he meant—is considered an expletive.

Not a cuss word. In this case, expletive simply means an unnecessary filler, or an empty word.  

Example:

There were seventy-six trombones in the big parade!

Good detail and the exclamation point tries, but why is there there? Maybe:

Seventy-six trombones were in the big parade!

Okay; we’ve lost the expletive and made the sentence a little more active, but can still do better:

Seventy-six trombones led the big parade!

Now we’ve taken charge and those brassy slides reach to the sky, bow to the ground, and snap left and right to the chest-pounding cadence thundering from the copper-bottomed tympani rows back. (At least that’s what I saw and heard when I read that sentence. You?)

Of course, exceptions abound, and there—although beleaguered by constant confusion with they’re and their—maintains a fine place in our world, telling us where (“It’s right there!”) and stepping up when we can’t recall a name (“Hi there!”). And sometimes you just want to begin a sentence with there; placement be damned.

Totally get it. Again, your voice is your voice.

But Mr. B’s excellent tough-love grammar tip is a quick way to tighten your writing one more crank. Let those expletives go and create a more descriptive narrative with just a simple word change or two.

There are two cats on the couch. / Two cats snooze on the couch.

There are tulips on the lanes. / Tulips line the lanes.

There were also wooden shoes! / And they marched in wooden shoes!

Well, now you’ve just lost your audience, because nobody would believe that. I mean, who* marches in wooden shoes?

*Missing the amazing Holland High Marching Dutchmen for the second year in a row. Love you guys.