Which is the grammatically correct:?

Question

None of them was poor.
None of them were poor.

Please explain why. I'm reading a book and the author has written "none of them was poor". I thought since "them" is collective it should be "were" ? Or does "none" have a weird rule to follow?

Answer 1

I would say the "were" sentence. Maybe the author is writing in a different American dialect?

Answer 2

I checked it for u in a grammar book...the rule says" After 'None of'+ A plural word ( ex: 'none of the shops', 'None of them') you can use a singular or a plural verb. A plural verb is more usual:
ex: None of the shops were ( or was) open "

That means that both sentences that you said are gramatically correct...but it's preferable to say " None of them were poor" although the other sentence is also correct.

Answer 3

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From Harbrace College Handbook †:
Agreement 6a(1): Do not be misled by nouns or pronouns intervening between the subject and the verb or by subjects and verbs with endings not clearly sounded.

The REPETITION of the drum beats helps to stir emotions.
Every ONE of you is invited to the panel discussion....

6a(6): When used as subjects, such words as EACH, EITHER, NEITHER, ONE, EVERYBODY, and ANYONE regularly take singular verbs....
... Subjects such as ALL, ANY, HALF, MOST, NONE, and SOME may take a singular or a plural verb; the context generally determines the choice of the verb form.
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The subject in the sentence is "none" not "them." In this context, the subject "none" is singular (none = No one individual), thus it takes the singular verb "was".

Answer 4

None is technically a singular form and needs the singular form of the verb, even though it sounds wrong. We commonly use grammatical incorrections because we have become accustomed to how they sound. For instance, infinitives are often split by adverbs or adjectives--" he decided to boldly go into the unlit room".( The coorrect form is "he decided to go boldly into the unlit room")

Answer 5

Many grammar rule books will allow you to use either a singular or plural verb with none, depending on what you think makes more sense.

Answer 6

Just say-none was poor-makes sense, right? Same with all of them-All were poor-get it? Sometimes if you drop the modifiers and just state the subject and verb, your ear will tell you what sounds right.

Answer 7

I think that the author was trying to express the poor-ness of the person. They/he was not literate enough to say it the correct way and it had to be expressed like that on purpose for you to 'see' that. That's my guess not being able to know more about the story or the book.

Answer 8

The first one, because the author has intended to collectively speak of the crowd as group of individuals. "Not one of them has a lot of money," is quite cumbersome, andd the way the author penned the phrase works well for dialogue, too. Look for that...was it a part of narrative or dialogue? Look for the tense of the narrative, too, and the situation as well.

Answer 9

None of them was poor
The author is talking about individuals; another interpretation would be out of the the collective group he is describing --no one was poor.

I hope this helps

Answer 10

You should test it like this....would you say "not one of them were poor" or would you say "not one of them was poor"......I think it is confusing because even though he is speaking about a group of people he is speaking about each member of the group as an individual.....I guess I should have just told you to pay more attention to the word "one" in that sentence that you do to the word "them".

Answer 11

'None' is the subject of the sentence, 'them' is the object. Since none is not a collective noun then 'was' is appropriate.