User:Fowler&fowler/None of

From a classic

From: Murray, Lindley (1808), An English grammar: comprehending the principles and rules of the language, illustrated by appropriate exercises, and a key to the exercises, Printed by T. Wilson for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Ormes, pp. 96–, retrieved 20 May 2012

None is used in both numbers: as, "None is so deaf as he that will not hear;" "None of those are equal to these." It seems originally to have signified, according to its derivation, not one, and therefore to have had no plural; but there is good authority for the use of it in the plural number: as, "None that go unto her return again." (Prov. ii. 19.) "Terms of peace were none vouchsaf'd" (Milton). "None of them are varied to express the gender." "None of them have different endings for the numbers." (Lowth's introduction). "None of their productions are extant." (Blair).

From: Murray, Lindley (1808), An English grammar: comprehending the principles and rules of the language, illustrated by appropriate exercises, and a key to the exercises, Printed by T. Wilson for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Ormes, pp. 226–, retrieved 20 May 2012

The practice of the best and most correct writers, or a great majority of them, corroborated by general usage, forms, during its continuance, the standards of language; especially, if, in particular instances, this practice continue, after objection and due consideration. Every connexion and application of words and phrases, thus supported, must therefore be proper, and entitled to respect, if not exceptionable in a moral point of view.

"Sermo constat ratione, vetustate, auctoritate, consuetudine. Consuetudo vero certissima loquendi magistra." Quinctilian. ("Language is based on reason, antiquity, authority, and usage. ... Usage, however, is the surest pilot in speaking ...."

"Si volet usus, Quem penes arbitrium est, et jus, et norma loquendi." Horace. ("(If usage wills it so, to whom the laws, rules, and control of language belong." Horace, Ars Poetica)

On this principle, many forms of expression, not less deviating from the general analogy of the language, than those before mentioned, are to be considered as strictly proper and justifiable. Of this kind are the following: "None of them are varied to express the gender;" and yet none originally signified no one.

Grammar and usage

In grammar, "none of" is a quantifier (similar to "much," "some," "five") applied to noun phrases beginning with a determiner (such as "the," "my"); it can also be applied to a pronoun. It has many meanings.

Examples:

(Noun phrase (in boldface)): None of the house is pretty. (Here "none" has a meaning akin to, but not as emphatic as, "no part")
(Noun phrase): None of my black and tan cats have been declawed. (Here "none" has a meaning akin to, but not as emphatic as, "not one." (But you would say, "Not one of my black and tan cats has ...") The register (context) here is informal.
(Noun phrase): None of my black and tan cats has been declawed. The register is formal or academic. You wouldn't want to use it in novel's dialog too much unless the character is stuffy.
(Pronoun (in boldface)): "We have examined the other exceptions taken to the rulings, but none of them is as important as the ones just considered, ..." (From: New York (State). Courts; Gibbons, Willard Smith; Stover, Rowland M. (1893), The New York State reporter: Containing all the current decisions of the courts of record of New York State ..., W.C. Little & Co., pp. 22–, retrieved 20 May 2012)
(Pronoun) "They are, most of them, open boats ? — They are, most of them, open boats, but there are, some of them, decked boats ; they are getting larger than they used to be. 966. Still none of them are as big as the Yarmouth and Lowestoft boats?" (Commons, Great Britain. Parliament. House of (1880), House of Commons papers, HMSO, pp. 2–, retrieved 20 May 2012)
As for Merlaysamuel/Nolelover's specific example, both forms can be seen:
- "... this leads the authors to believe that none of them are related to Voldagsen's bacillus." (United States. Office of Experiment Stations; United States. Dept. of Agriculture. States Relations Service (1911), Experiment station record, U.S. Govt. Printing Off., pp. 391–, retrieved 20 May 2012)
- "None of them is related to the Laconian sayings." (Psellus, Michael; Aerts, W. J. (1990), Michaelis Pselli Historia Syntomos, Walter de Gruyter, pp. 10–, ISBN 978-0-89925-300-8, retrieved 20 May 2012)
Finally, in colloquial Am. E., "none of" can also mean "not in the least," as in the western song, It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own.

Google books survey

A Google books search for "None of them is" (in the time range 1 January 1600 to 20 May 2012) returns 162,000 books.
Restricting to the 17th century returns 703 books.
Restricting the search to the 18th returns 1,260 books
Restricting to the 19th gives, 18,500 books
Restricting to the 20th returns 122,000 books.
And restricting to the 21st, returns 27,300 books. (The parts don't seem to be adding to the whole. :) But that's Google for you.)

A search for "None of them are" (in the time range 1 January 1600 to 20 May 2012) returns a total of 148,000 books.
Restricting to the 17th century returns: 923 books.
Restricting to the 18th gives: 3,550 books.
Restricting to the 19th returns: 43,800 books.
Restricting to the 20th returns: 77,400 books.
Restricting to the 21st gives: 28,600 books.

Nineteenth century novelists

Among the nineteenth century novelists, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Anthony Trollope, George Eliot, William Makepeace Thackeray, Oscar Wilde, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Thomas Hardy, the Bronte Sisters, Lewis Carroll, Wilkie Collins, Walter Scott, and R. L. Stevenson, "none of them is" is favored 161 times, whereas "none of them are" is favored 226 times.

English essayists

Among the English essayists (or prose writers), William Hazlitt, Samuel Johnson, Charles Lamb, George Orwell, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, Thomas Carlyle, Thomas Babington Macaulay, John Ruskin, and Virginia Woolf, "none of them is" is preferred 142 times, whereas "none of them are" is preferred 516 times.