[Grammar] None of our products is/has been/was tested on animals.

[clairec]

Thank you all for your previous replies. Here's another question for my teachers:

None of our products is tested on animals.
None of our products has been tested on animals.
None of our products was tested on animals.

Which tense/s is/are right, if there is not a context? (it is just a sentence in an exercise about passives. The key to the exercise just gives the first sentence as the right one. What about the others?

 

[clairec]

Re: tenses/passive

Thank you for your reply. It was a grammar exercise about passives ("Complete the sentences with the correct passive form of the verbs in the box...") provided by a famous course book for foreign learners. But it's very common to find such exercises, in which the context of the sentence is not clear. What is puzzling to me is the single-answer key!

 

[Rover_KE]

clairec, please note that I have changed your thread title.

Extract from the Posting Guidelines:

'Thread titles should include all or part of the word/phrase being discussed.'

 

[ChinaDan]

None of our products [STRIKE]is[/STRIKE] are tested on animals.
None of our products [STRIKE]has[/STRIKE] have been tested on animals.
None of our products [STRIKE]was[/STRIKE] were tested on animals.

"Products" is plural, so...

 

[ChinaDan]

While the plural verb is acceptable to many people these days, many others consider the subject of the verb to be none (=not one). Clairec's original sentences are correct.

"products" is the subject, sorry. Even if it wasn't...

"None have been here".
"Zero times".

You still need the plural.

 

[emsr2d2]

You will hear both the singular and the plural in BrE. My initial reaction when I read post #1 was that it should be plural, but then I read them again and realised that the singular was equally acceptable. My personal preference is for the plural. Had the sentences started with "Not one of our products", I would have automatically used the singular.

None of our products have been tested on animals.
Not one of our products has been tested on animals.

However, let me repeat - that is purely my personal preference.

 

[jutfrank]

For the record -- I realise people differ on this issue but I personally prefer the singular (None is) when writing as I think it makes more sense (Not one is) although I do use the plural more often when speaking informally.

ChinaDan makes an interesting point about zero quantities using plural forms, as in:

• zero times
  
• No dogs are allowed.
  

I think there may be a general rule that if we are talking about 'number', even when expressing a zero or negative quantity, we tend to use a plural form, unless there is the idea of one. We also say:

• Nobody/Nothing is...
  

for zero quantity, but these words are really to say No(t one) body and No(t a single) thing and so are singular conceptually, or at least they were when originally formed.

 

[GoesStation]

I greatly prefer none are. "Zero" is plural; it's natural for its synonyms to be plural as well. For example, we write There are no convincing reasons to use a singular conjugation, so it's logical to write None of the reasons offered are convincing.​

OK, I realize we'd be at least as likely to write There is no convincing reason.

 

[jutfrank]

I'm just saying that it is logical to say none is as long as you understand the word none as a contraction of not one.

In fact, this is the only logic as I see it. Are there any logical reasons at all for saying none are?

When you say No things are permanent., the subject is No things, which is plural.
When you say Not one of the things is permanent., the subject is one, which is singular.

And so seen in this way, in the example: None of our products is tested on animals., the subject is one (or none). To consider the subject as the plural noun products is a mistake.

 

[Barb_D]

You will hear both the singular and the plural in BrE. My initial reaction when I read post #1 was that it should be plural, but then I read them again and realised that the singular was equally acceptable. My personal preference is for the plural. Had the sentences started with "Not one of our products", I would have automatically used the singular.

None of our products have been tested on animals.
Not one of our products has been tested on animals.

However, let me repeat - that is purely my personal preference.

I agree with this post so completely that I thought it worth posting again in its entirety. The only change I'd make as an American is that you'll hearthe plural form far more often. It's one of those things that when I write in a more formal setting, I have to remind myself each time that according to the most conservative grammar pundits, "none" takes the singular.