FURTHER TO my trial for alleged misuse of the word "none" (to wit, causing it to be followed by a plural verb), I may have been too hasty last week in asking the jury for an acquittal.
Thanks to a tip-off from reader William Bell, the defence now wishes to call expert witnesses Mr Eric Partridge and Mr RB Hamilton. After hearing from them, I am confident the judge will throw the case out, without troubling the jury any longer.
First, allow me to introduce the two men. Partridge is (or was until 1979) a New Zealand-born lexicographer and writer, whose scholarship was illustrated by his almost daily occupation for half a century of the same seat (K1) in the British Library.
He was also an enthusiast for the singular "none". Until, that is, he was set straight by Hamilton, a correspondent from Nottingham.
Here is Partridge's typically colourful opening position, as recorded in Usage and Abusage: A guide to Good English(first published 1947): None (i) When none = not one, use the singular, as in 'None of the newspapers has appeared this week'. (ii) When none = no one, no person, nobody, the singular is correct; but, as indeed for (i) also, the plural is not regarded as a solecism: in both (i) and (ii), the plural is merely an infelicity, a defect that will not hinder the good enoughists. (iii) When none = no persons, the verb is plural, as in 'None have been so greedy of employment. . . as they who have least deserved their stations' (Dryden). The corresponding singular pronoun is no one.
In the 1963 edition, however, Partridge records the moment (August 17th, 1947) when he was knocked off his high horse by one of those "good enoughists". Mr Hamilton's letter on the subject was so "pertinent" he felt obliged to quote it in full. Here is a slightly edited version: "It is bad form nowadays to mention the Ten Commandments; so I will, with apologies, take you no further than the first, as it appears in the Prayer Book: 'Thou shalt have none other gods but me'. The turn of phrase is archaic; but if you had pondered it, you might have cleared up, instead of thickening, the fog of pretentious misunderstanding which surrounds the use of 'none'.
"May I submit for your consideration the following sentences: Q. Is there any sugar? A. 1. No, there isn't any sugar. (colloquial) 2. No, there isn't any. (colloquial and elliptical) 3. No, there is no sugar (formal) 4. No, there is none. (formal and elliptical) Q. Are there any plums? A. 5. No, there aren't any plums. (colloquial) 6. No, there aren't any. (colloquial and elliptical) 7. No, there are no plums. (formal) 8. No, there are none. (formal and elliptical).
"You will, I hope, agree that this arrangement has more than symmetry to recommend it. In the first place, all four replies in each case are exactly synonymous; secondly they are all logical; and thirdly they are all idiomatic - they all slip off the tongue of careful and careless speakers alike.
"Are they all equally grammatical? It seems that they should be; for they are logical and idiomatic, and what is grammar but a mixture of logic and idiom? There is no dispute as to Nos 1 to 7; but when you come to No 8, you will find [ ...] a superstition that, in formal contexts, it should be re-written with the verb in the singular. The awkwardness of this is apparent; for it seems to require the question to be either 'Is there any plums?', which is bad grammar, or 'Is there any plum?', which is not English at all. This awkwardness, however, recommends it to pompous or timid writers who, like fakirs, hope to gain merit by discomfort.
"The superstition was I think invented by some 18th-century sciolist, who, misled by appearances and regardless of history and logic, decided that 'none' was a contraction of 'no one' and decreed that it should be followed by a singular verb.
"[ ...] the truth is the opposite; for 'no' itself is nothing but a shortened form of 'none', standing in the same relation to it as 'my' does to 'mine'; so that 'none other gods' is archaic only in retaining the longer form, before an initial vowel, in attributive use, and the phrase answers to the modern 'no other gods' precisely as the Biblical 'mine eyes' answers to the modern 'my eyes'. The phrase 'no one' is therefore really a tautology (= not one one); and if Sentence No 8 is wrong, No 7 must be equally so.
"If you will now look back to the sentences, you will see that the facts are as follows: (1) 'No' is merely the attributive form of 'none'; (2) 'None' and 'no' do not (except by accident) mean 'not one' or 'no one' or 'no persons'; they mean 'not any', neither more nor less [ ...]; and (3) 'No', 'none' and 'any' are all singular or plural, according to the sense.
"Let me then urge you to throw in your lot with the 'good-enoughists' [ ...] and admit these simple facts. It is no disgrace to yield when etymology, logic and idiom are all against you. To say (as you suggest we should) 'None of the newspapers has appeared' is no better than to say 'No newspapers has appeared'. Indeed it is worse; for vulgarity may be forgiven, but pretentiousness carries its own heavy punishment."
Partridge's submission was as graceful as it was succinct: "After that I retract."