none...have/has

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:10 AM -0400 4/17/01, P2052 at AOL.COM wrote:
>A number of the older grammar books/style manuals claim that either
>acceptable.
>In The Complete Stylist and Handbook, 3rd ed. (1984), Sheridan acknowledges
>both a singular and a plural usage; however, he embraces the singular sense
>of none:  "None of them are, of course is very common.  From Shakespeare's
>time to ours, it has persisted alongside the more precise none of them is,
>which seems to have the edge in careful prose, since it follows the structure
>of English, matching singular with singular" (354).

I find this argument entirely circular and question-begging, besides
flying in the face of centuries of distinguished usage.

>He cites the following
>examples:
>                   FAULTY:  None of these men are failures.
>                   REVISED:  None of these men is a failure.
>                   FAULTY:  None of the class, even those best prepared, want
>the test.
>                   REVISED:  None of the class, even those best prepared,
>wants the
>                                     test.
>Note that these uses of none are the equivalent of not one.

Actually, I'm not sure that "none" = 'not one' in the second example:
"Not one of the class wants the test"?  In any case, this equivalence
(often used by earlier prescriptivists as a rationale for the
singular agreement) is a bit of a red herring, since the one case
where everyone has always used singular agreement, "none of the X"
for mass noun X, doesn't permit a "not one" paraphrase.

larry
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