[etni] A summary of the responses

From: Henry Mullish <hqm2011@xxxxxxx>
To: etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 08:08:37 -0400
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Hi English Teachers:

In response to the request of Michele, I append below all the responses I 
received to my inquiry about the correct English used in the New York Times 
quote.

Here is the original posting by me:

Henry Mullish wrote:

> Here is the quote from today's New York Times, taken from an article by 
> Thomas Friedman, whom I admire:

> "Of all the shortsighted policies of President Bush and Vice President Dick 
> Cheney, none have been worse than their opposition to energy conservation and 
> a gasoline tax."

> My question is, should it be: "none have  been" or "none has been"?

> Henry

And this is Michele's response:

I'm pretty sure that it's "none have been" because "none" refers back to the 
subject "policies" so the verb "to have" must agree with the plural "policies" 
therefore "none
have been."  Could you compile the answers you get to this and send the 
compilation to the list?  I'm curious about what other people say on this.
Good luck!
Michele

And now for some other responses:

Barry: "none is short for not one, therefore singular: None of the pupils has 
finished reading the story."

Elizabeth: "It should most definitely have been "none HAS," no two ways about 
it, grammatically speaking."

Tzvi: "It sure sounds like "none" is plural - all of them are better than..."

And finally, here is Linda's response:

"There are some excellent grammar sites on the internet. I'm sending you a site 
which answers your question: "none" can be both singular and plural."

The URL is: http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/sv_agr.htm

You may want to see that site for yourselves...

Henry

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[etni] A summary of the responses

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