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. ;)