People can debate the aesthetic merits of these overwrought, disquieti

Question

People can debate the aesthetic merits of these overwrought, disquieting, sometimes gruesome works of art,  but no one can dispute their creators' mastery of the paintbrush as a blunt instrument.

(A) but no one can dispute their creators' mastery of the paintbrush as a blunt instrument.

(B) but none can dispute their creators' mastery of the paintbrush as a blunt instrument.

(C) but not a one can dispute their creators' mastery of the paintbrush as a blunt instrument.

(D) but no person can dispute their creators' mastery of the paintbrush as a blunt instrument.

(E) but none can dispute to their creators' mastery of the paintbrush as a blunt instrument.

snipertrader · Accepted Answer

'none' is usually treated as a plural noun, while 'no one' is always a singular noun.

deepakdewani · Answer

Nopes. That is not correct. The singular/plural treatment of none (like some, all, any, many) depends on the noun immediately following it. Examples:

There are loads of  cholocates  in the fridge, but none of them  are  to be eaten.

I have loads of  money , but none of that money  is  to be spent on shopping.

Moreover, in this context, there should not be any problem in using no one along with "people". A similar example is:

I have invited a lot of people to the party, but no one is likey to turn up.

Becuase the verb immediately following the underlined portion is "can debate" (which can refer to both singular and plural), in my view there is no problem in using either "no one" or "none". There is no reason to prefer one over the other.

I have, therefore, doubts on the legitimacy of this question, but I will flag this to the experts in MGMAT forums and see what is their response.

x2suresh · Answer

clearly between A and B.

both gramatically sounds perfect.. B is concise.

nitya34 · Answer

https://www.englishforums.com/English/No ... g/Post.htm

icandy · Answer

It is not a Q of brevity here.

no one clearly refers to person

none can refer to any thing. none of them would be a different way of using none to refer to people

no person is not needed because we dont need to prove that no one refers to a person

Hence A

duttarupam · Answer

B is correct.

"none" is used as a plural noun and is commonly preferred in formal writing.
" no one" is a singluar noun.

The first part of the sentence refer to a plural noun "People", so "none" is a better option.

temp33 · Answer

E has "dispute to".. i doubt if thats the right usage.. 
As per my understanding B is correct..

gmat1011 · Answer

I tend to agree with dewani none / no one ---- singular/plural doesn't seem to affect this sentence

no one in facts sounds better (no person sounds more awkward and unidiomatic) than none to my ear at least... but hey I am no expert :-D

would have gone with the option with no one

would have gone with the option with no one

gmat1011 · Answer

"their" is referring to the works of art not to 'no one'/ 'none'. People don't have creators (not counting God and one's parents!)

people in plural and no one singular can go together I think. For instance:

Why do people ask foolish questions that no one can answer?

I don't think the above sentence is wrong...

mourinhogmat1 · Answer

"no one" and "no person" are singular and need singular verbs such as his/her. But the verb is the same in all cases. It is THEIR. Thus the correct subject is None. It is a mimic of a OG question.

Marcab · Answer

Guys " no one" is ALWAYS SINGULAR. Whereas "none" depends basically in the of-phrase of which it is a part.
In this question, "people can debate their......., but ___ can dispute their". Since we are already talking about people(plural), we are left with none. Options such as not a one, not a person and dispute to are ridiculous.
Hence B.

axs · Answer

Seems to me we're dealing with 2 different issues here.

In the real world:
People {plural} can debate..., but no one (not even one {singular} of them) can dispute...
or
People {plural} can debate..., but none {plural} of those people can dispute...
Here are the grammar rules:

1. When the subject of the sentence is an indefinite pronoun (anyone, anybody, anything, everyone, everybody, everything, whatever, whoever, either, neither, someone, somebody, something, nothing, no one, nobody, each, every):
All these pronouns are singular. They either already have the word "one" in them, or you can insert "one" without changing the meaning (anybody = any one body).
2. When the subject of the sentence is an amount word (fraction, percent, part, majority, minority, remainder) or pronoun (NASMA):
All of these can be singular or plural, and are followed by "of" and a noun. That latter noun determines the verb. "None of the water is missing", but "None of the workers are missing"). NASMA stands for "none, any, some, most, all" (from least to greatest).

So, in the real world, as some folks have already pointed out, either format will do just fine.
You can argue that plural...plural has better parallelism, but the contrast between plural "people" & singular "one" works well also.

The right question, though, is  what the GMAT wants . If this is indeed taken from or modelled after an Official question, and the Official Answer is (B), just accept (B) as written in stone and move on.

Injuin · Answer

https://www.englishforums.com/English/No ... g/post.htm

None is plural and no one is singular. Because of the inclusion of "but" you want "none" because "people" is the subject that is doing the disputing. Even though "merits" and "people" are both plural, "people" is the only subject that can realistically do the "disputing".

Injuin · Answer

Because "people" is plural. It only makes sense that people are the ones disputing, so you have to have "none" in order to properly match "people".

mandyrhtdm · Answer

Although their were 10,000 people in the building but no one got killed.

Is this wrong ?

Injuin · Answer

Well, that's wrong for a few reasons. "their" is possessive, should be "there". "Although" sets up a future contrast so there is no need to use "but". The sentence that you just used is different from the questions stem. Instead of thinking of rules and such (if there is X, then Y must be there) think of how you can convey the meaning. Two things are happening in the sentence. The first is obvious: "people can dispute the aesthetic merits..." That's no problem. Now the second part is "_______ can dispute their creators'". We want "people" to be disputing. In order to make it clear that we are referring to "people" we have to match plural with plural.

I am assuming that you are treating "no one" as "nobody" since I hear those two used interchangeably all the time. "Nobody" is commonly used for referring to "people", thus people tend to think that "no one" refers to people. However, in terms of written language "no one" can refer to anything, so long as that is singular. Therefore if you were to put "no one" as an answer choice, what does "no one" refer to? There are no singular nouns in the sentence so the meaning cannot be made clear in a written sense.

0102ng · Answer

But even if we go by dictionary it says

no one - no person; not anyone; nobody
none - adj. not any
adv. not at all or in no way

I have confronted this question none vs no one & everywhere I saw that there's no difference. So, I think its actually a debatable question I find no difference between a & b...
B .......

TheUltimateWinner · Answer

Hi Bunuel , It seems that this question has been discussed in another thread. If so, could you merge this topic, please? Here is the link of same question: https://gmatclub.com/forum/people-can-d ... 76508.html Thanks__

Bunuel · Answer

____________________
Merged. Thank you.

People can debate the aesthetic merits of these overwrought, disquieti

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People can debate the aesthetic merits of these overwrought, disquieti

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