Question
Updated on
22 Apr 2015
- Simplified Chinese (China)
-
English (US)
-
English (UK)
Question about English (US)
How do you say this in English (US)? 1. None of them know me. 2. None of them knows me. 3. None of us have been there. 4. None of us has been there. 5. None of the books are mine. 6. None of the books is mine.
How do you say this in English (US)? 1. None of them know me. 2. None of them knows me. 3. None of us have been there. 4. None of us has been there. 5. None of the books are mine. 6. None of the books is mine.
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- English (US)
- Vietnamese
- English (UK) Near fluent
"None" should be singular, but it's also very common for people to use it as plural.
In phrases like "none of us" or "none of the books", people instinctively use plural verbs ("have" and "are") since there are those plural subjects ("us" and "books"). However, "none" is a singular verb and it really should be used with singular verbs.
To answer your question, the correct ones are:
- None of them knows me
- None of us has been there
- None of the books is mine
If you use plural with "none", it's not completely wrong because people still debate this.
Highly-rated answerer
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- Simplified Chinese (China)
The explanation is as beautiful as the photo of your image.
Thank you, girl!
Thank you, girl!
- Simplified Chinese (China)
None of them is my boss.
As for this sentence, I think it should always be singular.
What do you think?
As for this sentence, I think it should always be singular.
What do you think?
- English (US)
- Vietnamese
- English (UK) Near fluent
Yes, I think it should be singular.
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Deleted user
I use the plural for all of these. Using the singular for these examples sounds extremely strange to my ears.
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- Simplified Chinese (China)
Thank you for your valuable comment, I will take your suggestion and try to use the plural form.
Deleted user
There are times where I use the singular, such as with mass nouns:
None of the food is good.
None of the trash has been taken out.
If I'm talking about "nothing within a group", then I use the plural (as in your examples):
None of them are coming to the party.
None of the books are worth reading.
None of the questions make sense.
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- English (US)
- Vietnamese
- English (UK) Near fluent
Using singular for some of these sound strange to my ears too. I would also use plural, but the singular is really the proper way
Highly-rated answerer
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- Simplified Chinese (China)
Glad to see you're contributing to the discussion. Thanks for your clarification!
Deleted user
But is it better to be proper and sound weird to natives or speak how everyone else does?
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- Simplified Chinese (China)
I've always been pursuing proper English, but now it seems natural English/real English comes first. Haha!
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