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Has the language really changed this much in twenty years? "None of your students have showed up" - a sentence supplied by this very website as a proper one - seems wrong on two counts to me.

Twenty years ago (or in my high school and college) "none" took a singular verb, as did "no one" and "nobody" and "nothing." And the past perfect of "show" was "shown." Show, showed, shown. They will show up. They showed up yesterday. They had already shown up.

In this example sentence ("None of your students have showed up...") I cringed two times. Shouldn't it read, "None of your students has shown up..."?

Or am I really that old?

Loren Whitaker
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  • That's still the rule, 'none' is singular, but it's still hard to follow. WDo you have the link and answer to the ELU question where this was found? – Mitch Feb 08 '13 at 13:40
  • Goodness me! How old are you? I'm 70 and "none has" vs. "none have" doesn't bother me at all! Not all those rules we learned a century ago were right or even reasonable back in the day. I shivered at the "showed up", just as I would've had it been *"We shown up late, didn't we?". Chalk it up to a typo, poor proofreading, or the shift from verbal to graphic (as in Fahrenheit 451-style photography/TV/mass media-only) communication (the real source of what is called the "dumbing down of English" (and Chinese here in Taiwan). Chill & cut everyone else some slack. :-) –  Feb 08 '13 at 13:54
  • Oh...I didn't notice 'showed' instead of 'shown'. Yeah that's totally backwoods! – Mitch Feb 08 '13 at 14:18
  • @Mitch, it's not backward, though it's archaic to my ears, it persists to the present day. Alas, it's closed for the duplication of "none" so we can't address showed. – Jon Hanna Feb 08 '13 at 14:43
  • @Mitch: Simply stating 'that's still the rule', without substantiating authorities, isn't helpful. Especially when Barrie and Robusto then give well-resourced answers showing that it hasn't even been a rule within living memory. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 08 '13 at 14:58
  • @EdwinAshworth: My apologies. It's hard to fit all that in a comment. My comment was not intended to be an complete well-researched answer, which I do expect from Barry and Robusto (no pressure!). But in the end it surely is a rule that is promoted in secondary schooling so the OPs reaction is expected. – Mitch Feb 08 '13 at 17:56
  • @Mitch (from OP originally): Here's the link to the ELU page on which appears "...none of your students have showed up...": http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/24195/when-would-i-use-might-as-well-instead-of-may-as-well – Kit Z. Fox Feb 08 '13 at 18:02
  • @Loren you need the @ symbol to ping. I moved the content of your comment so it can be seen as a response to Mitch's, but if you want to re-post it in this comment chain, I will delete mine. – Kit Z. Fox Feb 08 '13 at 18:04
  • OK, now I see the example in context...yes, it is only slightly lower register and would probably be written in the NYT as you do. But I hardly noticed (but I'm not a writer). – Mitch Feb 08 '13 at 18:15

2 Answers2

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Beware the Recency Illusion. None have has been around for at least 350 years. Even Fowler writing in 1926 said that it was a mistake to suppose that none ‘must at all costs be followed by a singular verb.’ The Oxford English Dictionary says in note in its entry for none ‘Many commentators state that none should take singular concord, but this has generally been less common than plural concord, especially between the 17th and 19th centuries.’

The past participle of show is normally shown, but the Oxford English Dictionary comments that ‘the older showed is still sometimes used’.

Barrie England
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  • You're being recent, since King Alfred used none both singularly and plural around 890CE! – Jon Hanna Feb 08 '13 at 14:21
  • I'm sure you're right. Do you have a citation for his plural use? – Barrie England Feb 08 '13 at 14:50
  • I've been trying to track it down, but have only got as far as finding citations of the citation. It's meant to be in his translation of Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy. I have Beleaf þær nan buton an munec. from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 1070. – Jon Hanna Feb 08 '13 at 15:03
  • Showed is easier, since the distinction of forms between showed and shown is only meaningful in talking about Modern English, so anything earlier than Wycliffe's "Alle these thingis Y schewide to you, for so it bihoueth men trauelinge to resseyue sike men, and to haue mynde of the `word of the Lord Jhesu; for he seide, It is more blesful to yyue, than to resseyue." Acts 20:35 is meaningless, and the relevance of "schewide" debatable, though we have "shewed" and "showed" in translations up until the present day. – Jon Hanna Feb 08 '13 at 15:04
  • I don’t quite see how beleaf þær nan butan an munec illustrates 'none' (nan) as the subject of a clause with a plural verb. – Barrie England Feb 08 '13 at 17:47
  • Perhaps I cringed because I was taught (by people I respected as authorities) that "none" is a pronoun meaning "no one" or "not one" -- and as I'm obviously not an expert (just a poor fiction writer), I've gone on these many decades remembering what my teachers taught me. Besides that, it does seem logical, more often than not I think, to supply "none" with a singular verb, as I see "none" as "not one" or as "no one." I do understand how in some cases a plural verb makes sense. I've learned something! However, I still won't write, "...had not showed his face...." Nope. – Loren Whitaker Feb 08 '13 at 18:03
  • I may have that case wrong, Barry, as I do need the glossary by my side when struggling with OE. To my mind the interesting thing about it is the emergence of the "rule" against it, but that can be addressed in the duplicate. As for showed, I think Loren we're safe considering that use archaic in most dialects and shown safely preferred in our own writing, unless it's historical fiction. Condemning it in another's is a different matter, I would if I were their editor, politely suggest if asked to proof, and leave them to their own choices otherwise. – Jon Hanna Feb 08 '13 at 18:30
  • King Alfred probably used the royal 'We' as well. – Edwin Ashworth Feb 08 '13 at 22:59
  • @EdwinAshworth that I think was a good two centuries later. – Jon Hanna Feb 09 '13 at 01:17
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    Found "...þeah he him nanra oðerra læna ne wene." which has me stumped on the translation (læna = lend? læna = temporary?) but that would seem to be "none" declined for plural use. – Jon Hanna Feb 09 '13 at 21:30
  • @Jon Hanna. Thank you. The Old English text is here http://tinyurl.com/afrtpxy, and your quotation comes in the first paragraph of chapter XXIV. There’s a modern English translation at http://tinyurl.com/aezq4s7, but it’s difficult to match them up because the OE text isn’t a clean one. Still, as far as I can see, the (rather free) translation seems to be ‘For some men think that the greatest happiness is for a man to be so rich as to need nothing more.’ ]CONTINUED] – Barrie England Feb 10 '13 at 08:15
  • @Jon Hanna. Even if I haven’t got that right (which is quite possible), I recognize no plural verb in the quotation, and I don’t see nanra in subject position either. Perhaps whoever claims it as an early instance of none + plural verb can enlighten us. – Barrie England Feb 10 '13 at 08:15
  • Aw well, its claimed in MW's Dictionary of English Usage that he did so somewhere. As much as I hate depending on secondary sources, it'll serve. It's when we get to Early Modern that it's really important anyway, and that I can show well enough. (Middle is as far back as I can struggle with on my own, but I haven't found any. It's when you start hunting for them that you realise how often none is used in a way that could be taken as having any number). – Jon Hanna Feb 10 '13 at 09:53
  • I've come across this again trying to track down a duplicate question, and in the meantime have learnt more: None is indeed derived from no one or not one but in Old English was declined for singular and plural forms. The Modern English none is therefore descended from a word that quite explicitly covered both singular and plural cases. – Jon Hanna Dec 05 '14 at 03:53
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This is a silly shibboleth brought to you by hyper-corrective grammar pedants. Here is a usage note that explains it in simple terms:

It is widely asserted that none is equivalent to no one, and hence requires a singular verb and singular pronoun: None of the prisoners was given his soup. It is true that none is etymologically derived from the Old English word n, "one," but the word has been used as both a singular and a plural noun from Old English onward. The plural usage appears in the King James Bible as well as the works of John Dryden and Edmund Burke and is widespread in the works of respectable writers today. Of course, the singular usage is perfectly acceptable. The choice between a singular or plural verb depends on the desired effect. Both options are acceptable in this sentence: None of the conspirators has (or have) been brought to trial. When none is modified by almost, however, it is difficult to avoid treating the word as a plural: Almost none of the officials were (not was) interviewed by the committee. None can only be plural in its use in sentences such as None but his most loyal supporters believe (not believes) his story.

All my paper dictionaries (OED, Wester's Third New Int'l, etc.) agree on this point. None takes both a singular and plural complement, depending on the circumstances.

Robusto
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