Grammar -help!

[acushla]

My so recently had a homework that asked him to choose the correct word to complete a sentence. None of you is/sre to come. He choose are(I agree) the teacher says is. Please tell me she is wrong.

SO sorry typed in a hurry, I mean my son and the word choice is/are

I would say either! None of you can be either singular or plural ( indeed it was originally no-one and only singular!) and so could either take None of you is to come, if referring to just one person, or none of you are to come if referring to more than one!

The grammatically correct answer is "is". This is because the word "none" is short for "not one". So if you rewrite the sentence in that way, you'll see what the answer should be i.e."Not one of you is to come".

However, in speech rather than formal writing it would be more normal to use the word "are". So in my view, you are both right!

She's right.

None of you are to come sounds better and is correct, grammatically, so I go with your choice. "None" is not, after all, a reference to a single person, it is a reference to no-one at all, out of a choice of many people.

The correct word is "is". As none is a singular word which is the shortened form of not one.

How old is your son?

I agree with Ruth1312 that "are" would get used in speech but "is" is correct.

there's a huge debate about that!
in academic circles at least.

I prefer none is because it's a contraction of not one, but it is debated as to whether this correct and if it is really a case of it meaning, like rabbit stew said, nothing. in which case it is correct to say None are.

I disagree - I don't think there is a universally set rule for this one on which all grammarians are agreed. I've also just checked in the Oxford English Reference Dictionary, where it specifically says: "not any one of (none of them has come) - The verb following none in this sense can be singular or plural according to the sense".

ps don't disagree with nickelbabe, just the rest of you!

He is 9

Thanks for all the messages so far. Doesn't quite sound as though there is a definitive answer.

There is a definitive answer - your son's teacher should not be correcting work that was not, in fact, incorrect... Thoroughly inconvenient, of course, not to have a definitive rule to teach the children, but that's life!

Yes, she shouldn't have set a question with 2 possible answers and decided that her way was the right way.

It's like saying "what colour is a chess coard made up of - black or white?"
both are correct.

I think the answer is "is", because none is singular.

However, the point is not the precise answer but the reasoning behind the answer. Ask your DS to ask the teacher to explain.

Unless senua knows more than the Oxford English Reference dictionary, it is wrong to state that the answer should be ""is," because none is singular." A plural verb can legitimately follow "none." The teacher clearly does have reasoning behind her preference (it's easier to learn always to use the singular verb with the word "none"), but she should admit to it being a preference.

Regardless of any rules of grammar, nothing is neither singular nor plural in reality, so why set an arbitrary rule that any word indicating you don't want any of something should ALWAYS take a singular verb when every bone in your body wants it to be a plural, because you are talking about a lot of things that you would rather not be there, rather than just one?...

And so speaks the self-appointed expert, who never had a grammar lesson in her life!

Long answer:-

Rabbitstew is correct. "None" can be treated as singular or plural, unless something in the sentence defines its number. I don't think it's correct to say that it's short for "no one"; it can also be read as "not any".

It's probably best treating "none" like a collective noun, ie, treat it as singular or plural depending on context.

Short answer:-

I prefer "is".