Talk:no one

Latest comment: 1 year ago by Milkunderwood in topic Usage note

Usage note edit

"noone" for "no one" is an all too common misspelling. There should be a Usage note on this, but I don't know how to add that. User:BlankVerse 01:00, 21 September 2006 (UTC)Reply

Common enough perhaps for listed in alternative spellings (though would certainly need disclaimer about subject to correction and something about how informal a spelling it is). About the page itself, where does this nonsense about no one being more polite than nobody come from? I've analyzed what I think about a sentence after replacing nobody with no one and I can't find any change in meaning except the idiomatic expression "you're a nobody", which is equivalent to the idiomatic expression "you're no one". I would put a "can we verify this sense" thingy, but I don't know how to create that template.Scotty Zebulon 01:30, 22 January 2009 (UTC)Reply
That is done with {{rfv-sense}}. I agree, I have heard some people claim that no one/someone/anyone is more educated and formal usage than nobody/somebody/anybody, but that’s nonsense. One is as good as the other. —Stephen 01:43, 22 January 2009 (UTC)Reply
As a GA speaker, I use both the -one and -body forms, but -one far more frequently. Usually one of the two forms just sounds better to me in context. Sometimes the -body form sounds slightly déclassé to me, but I wouldn't generalize the -one form as being "more educated or formal". Milkunderwood (talk) 06:50, 1 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

No one of + plural noun phrase edit

The Collins English Usage reads

Don't use ‘of’ after ‘no one’ or ‘nobody’; Say ‘None of the children could speak French’.

However in the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language one can find : No one of these properties is unique

Is this just stylistic advice? --Backinstadiums (talk) 11:00, 27 July 2020 (UTC)Reply

no single one of seems to accept better plural noun phrases --Backinstadiums (talk) 13:39, 27 July 2020 (UTC)Reply
It probably depends on the context and tone, but in general I think Not one of these [properties is unique, etc.] would be more frequently used, which also avoids adding your suggested single in the middle of the phrase. In either case the meaning and emphasis are subtly changed from the Cambridge Grammar construction. Otherwise, the Collins advice seems sound to me, while the Cambridge construction strikes me as being iffy at best, though possibly useful in rare circumstances. Milkunderwood (talk) 06:05, 1 November 2022 (UTC)Reply
Return to "no one" page.