I {heart} word nerds

[sarahmichigan]

On the plus side, I love that I work with a bunch of word nerds. Last week, a few of us got into a big debate about whether the word "none" is singular or plural. Would you say, "None of the customers were recognized as regulars?" or "None of the customers was recognized as a regular?" *

Even many of my friends who don't have English backgrounds have expansive vocabularies, and I love not having to dumb down the words I choose so as not to make someone feel inferior (unlike in high school when I was accused of using big words because I was trying to show off). I recently used "importune" in conversation and then kind of smirked at myself. Word nerd, indeed.

(yeah, so I'm chatty today. It's slooooooooow at work.)

*Most guides to grammar and style say either is acceptable. You can consider "none" to be short for "not one" or for "not any."

Comments

[bernmarx.livejournal.com]

I read the footnote, but I had this know-it-all post all written in my head, and you know me, I just have to share.

I was going to say that, for me, it's:

None are ...
Not one is ...
No-one is ...
Nobody is ...

The only reason I can think of is that in all but the first, the emphasis is on the singularity. That is, from a boolean perspective, the sentence is NOT (x):

One student is happy.
Not one student is happy.

"None" to me always implies "of the Xs" and hence "not any."

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

I knew you couldn't resist replying to a grammar post. ;)

[simianpower.livejournal.com]

I just used "elucidate" in casual conversation, then part of my brain did a double-take at how easily it flowed for both myself and the one I was speaking to.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

I appreciate your cogent and germane contribution to this discussion. (*snorf*)

[flyinglemurs.livejournal.com]

The first one sounds better to me.
My journal is not actually a good example of my writing or grammer as its usually stream of thought then hit send...but I used to write up training were I used to work and tons of memos and instructional stuff. I never thought my grammer was all that good until I saw some of the memos my coworkers would write....all people w degrees...some were just horrible. Bad flow, bad word form agreement, ick.

I have some trouble with knowing more words inside my head then I use in conversation because well I hardly ever hear them and so don't know how to pronounce them correctly! Probably a sign of growing up in a non-big-word-using family while reading too many books.

Oh and I also like word puzzles. Call me geek. Not word searches though those are dull.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

I love word games, too. I put "variety word puzzles" on my Xmas wishlist every year, and I have a ton of puzzle books that are about 3/4 full because I do all the puzzles except the word searches and number puzzles.

I know what you mean about having access to a lot of words but being afraid to use them because you're not sure how to pronounce them. My hubby, dionysus1999 is the same way.

[flyinglemurs.livejournal.com]

Drat, I posted something and the wireless ate it..

Yeah I like the variety ones best. Crosswords are okay but I like the weird ones, and things like quotefalls and ...hmm, the one where you fill in a bunch of words above numbered blanks and then use those to make a quote.

My dad and I have this cool father daughter bonding thing going now I think...he's been saving his half finished cross word puzzles for me to finish when he gets stuck. It works out well because the ones he can't get are usually the ones I can, and ones I wouldn't have been able to get he did already.

Yeah...on the 2nd one..and nothing makes you sound worse than using realllly big words, and pronouncing them incorrectly ugh. So I just avoid them if I don't know how you say them usually. But I do pretty good on word trivia quizes, or the reader's digest vocab thingy.

[lilpeace.livejournal.com]

I think of it like...which one of these is correct...

...the customers was...
or
...the customers were...

It seems that the 'was' or 'were' would be decided based on the subject, so then only the second would be correct. If "was" was acceptable in this sentence, then sentences such as "we was going to the store," or "they was regulars," would be acceptable as well--and as far as I know, they're not. At least, I hope they're not because they sound really wrong to me.

I like stuff like this too.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

The problem is that "none" NOT "customers" is the subject of the sentence.

It's clearer in this example:

One of the hammers had a broken handle. It's not "hammers have a broken handle" but "one had a broken handle."

Same idea.