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A Word, Please: Trickiness of ‘none’ complicated by too many words before the verb

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Not long ago in this space, I wrote about exceptions to a grammar rule. I added, “”But none of those exceptions apply in modern publishing.”

Soon after, I got an email from a reader named Charles. “With all due respect,” he wrote, “‘none’ is singular and takes a singular form of the verb, which should be ‘applies’ in this case.”

Did I make a mistake? Yes. But was my mistake a grammar error? Not exactly.

When I used the pronoun “none,” I meant it in the singular. That was my intention: “none” meaning “not one.” So it should have been paired with a singular verb, that is, a verb conjugated for a singular subject.

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For example, a singular subject like “exception” would take a verb conjugated for a singular subject, like “applies,” as in “an exception applies.”

Yet the verb I paired it with was conjugated for a plural subject: “apply,” as in “exceptions apply.” That would have been fine had the subject actually been the plural “exceptions.” But it wasn’t. The intended subject of my verb was the singular “none.”

But I lost track of what I was saying, probably because the plural noun “exceptions” came closer to the verb than the singular “none.” So I inadvertently matched the verb to “exceptions,” as if I meant that “exceptions apply” when I really meant that “none applies.”

Confusing, right? In grammar, this is sometimes called “false attraction” — a noun accidentally governs the verb simply because the real subject is so far away that the writer or speaker forgot what it was.

Yet my error, contrary to widespread belief, was not a grammar error. The pronoun “none” can, according to its definition, take a plural verb. Webster’s New World College Dictionary’s main definition for “none” is “not one,” which is clearly singular. But Webster’s also defines “none” as meaning “not any” and gives this example: “Many letters were received but none were answered.”

See how “none” is paired with the plural verb “were”? If “none” could only be singular, that would read “none was answered,” with the singular verb “was.”

Whenever multiple definitions of a word are listed in the dictionary, you can use that word in any of the ways described, as long as it makes sense in context. So you can choose “none was” or “none were” depending on nothing more than whether your idea of “none” is singular or plural.

That’s where I erred. Whenever possible, I opt for the dictionary’s preferred forms. Partly, that’s just habit. In professional editing, we default to the dictionary’s preferred spellings and verb inflections.

For example, if we want to know whether to write “He had dreamed” or “He had dreamt,” we check the dictionary and see that “dreamed” is the preferred past participle, even though “dreamt” is also acceptable.

By having a guideline — always going with the dictionary’s first choice — we can assure that we don’t have “he had dreamed” on page one and “he had dreamt” on page two. It helps ensure consistency.

But really, that practice is about spellings and inflected forms — not about definitions. If the main definition of “dove” is a bird, that doesn’t mean it can’t also be a past tense of “dive.” In publishing, all dictionary definitions are fair game, even if that’s not the approach we take to spellings and past participles.

Still, I long ago decided that I like “none” better as a singular. That’s how I use it. That’s what it means when I use it. So, in my writing, it should almost always take a singular verb. That’s why “none of the exceptions apply” was, in my assessment, a mistake.

JUNE CASAGRANDE is the author of “The Best Punctuation Book, Period.” She can be reached at JuneTCN@aol.com.

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