none

   The widely held belief that none must always be singular is a myth. Since Fowler, Bernstein, Howard, Gowers, Partridge, the Evanses, the Morrises, Follett, The Oxford English Dictionary, the American Heritage, Random House, and Websters New World dictionaries, and many others have already made this point, I do not suppose that the addition of my own small voice to the chorus will make a great deal of difference.

   Whether you treat none as a singular or a plural, you should at least be consistent throughout the sentence, as this writer was not: "None of her friends, she says, would describe themselves as a feminist" (Guardian). Make it either "would describe themselves as feminists" or "would describe herself as a feminist."

   A more notable inconsistency, if only because it comes from a respected authority, is seen here: "The total vocabulary of English is immense and runs to about half a million items. None of us as individuals, of course, knows more than a fairly limited number of these, and uses even less" (Professor Randolph Quirk, The Use of English). "None of us . .. uses even less"? The sentence appears to be telling us that nobody uses fewer words than he knows, which is, unfortunately, the opposite of what the author intended. It would be better if we made it "and we use even less," and better still if we made it "and we use even fewer."