Doubt in an e-gmat example sentence.

Question

The sentence read :

"Since the last time Amy met her friends, none of them has seen her".

Shouldn't it be "none of them  have   seen her" since none is a plural subject, hence plural verb?

Can someone kindly clarify.

Thank You,
Rishabh

pintukr · Answer

None is taken to be 'singular'.

None of them 'has' is the correct usage.

TenthCentury · Answer

none = not one (singular; individual)
none = not any (plural; entire group)

meaning of the sentence here suggests, 'none of them' is 'not one of them'. 
Thus, singular verb 'has' is correct.

rishabhmenon21 · Answer

In that case, how do you differentiate between the two? Can you provide me with two examples where the meaning of the word “none” changes according to the context of the sentence, thereby changing the verb to be used?

Posted from my mobile device

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TenthCentury · Answer

Singular:  None of us has the answer.
to emphasize that not one of them has the answer

Plural:  None of us have the answer.
to emphasize that the entire group doesn’t have the answer

bb · Answer

🥴 i’m not sure I can keep this in my mind I would know how to properly distinguish… The rule I usually follow, is that if the noun after none is plural, then it’s a plural form of the verb and if the noun is non-countable/singular, then it’s a singular verb. I believe that is sufficient for the gmat. It has definitely been for me. However, it does get progressively complicated but I’m not sure if you want to spend your time messing with it. There is a good article it seems: https://www.grammarbook.com/blog/singul ... -none-are/ Posted from my mobile device

rishabhmenon21 · Answer

With that understanding , ‘them’ would be a plural noun correct? So shouldn’t it be “none of them have seen her” ?
Apparently, the usage was “none of them has seen her”

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bb · Answer

I don’t think GMAT Tests this case because it is debatable and GMAT tries to be clean in its answers…. and based on the article I have a link above (I added it to my original post after doing a bit more research), you can argue that is correct either way. 😂

However, the article suggests that none of them has seen her is the correct way because it literally mean not a single one of them has seen her.

rishabhmenon21 · Answer

Okay, understood!
Thank you all, thanks BB!

Posted from my mobile device

AjiteshArun · Answer

Hi rishabhmenon21,

The rule you found is just  one  way of looking at  none . Unfortunately, there is no consensus to be found here, so I ask my students to delay taking a call on  none  (and try to work with other splits).
1. Some people think that  none of  +   should be considered singular because "none"  ~  "no one".
2. Others think it should be plural because "none"  ~  "not any".
3. And... some people think both are fine.

So far as I remember, (1) is the "traditional" view, whereas (2) and (3) are more modern ways of using that structure. For what it's worth, I like (3). However, if a question  forced  us to choose, I would go  singular .

Have a look at the nonunderlined portion of  this official question :

None  of the attempts to specify the causes of crime   explains  why most of the people...

Doubt in an e-gmat example sentence.

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