Re: MEDIA

It seems to me that the word "media" is a prime candidate for this discussion thread. I encounter a great deal of confusion about how to use it properly.

Here is an excerpt from a NYT article:

"No one doubts that social media – all the stuff on Facebook, Twitter and other online forums – provides a rich lode of user sentiment that companies ought to be able to exploit."

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/sas-seeks-to-improve-data-mining-of-social-media/

"...social media... provides"?

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NOTE: I haven't yet had a chance to read through all of the posts in this thread, so please forgive me if I am raising an issue that has already been thoroughly dissected. I look forward to returning to read the full discussion here.

Re: NONE

Tristan and John,

Interesting exchange on the usage of the word "none". I always thought that it meant, specifically and solely, "not one", and should therefore always be used with a singular verb. I'll pay attention now to whether it is being used in the sense of:

1. “not any persons or things”
versus
2. “not one” or “not any”.

QUESTION:
However, this explanation confuses me. How does this second "not any" (in #2) differ from “not any persons or things”?

"None" is certainly followed by a plural verb often enough in print and other media, and that has always driven me a bit mad.

Here's an example from the New York Times (see the last three words):

"Dr. Kleiman’s work also included the highly public, always stressful and generally thankless task of trying to coax healthy offspring from the Washington zoo’s first, reluctant giant pandas, Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, and having to explain year after year to a disappointed public why none were forthcoming."

Would this be a case in which the plural usage is correct?

Here is another example from the New York Times, which seems grammatically incorrect to me:

"All the leading candidates warned voters that 'cuts are coming,' but none were even close to honest about how deep."

Does anyone have an opinion?

Here is another case in which I now have doubt (last sentence, after the comma):

"In one of Dr. Griffiths’s first studies, involving 36 people with no serious physical or emotional problems, he and colleagues found that psilocybin could induce what the experimental subjects described as a profound spiritual experience with lasting positive effects for most of them. None had had any previous experience with hallucinogens, and none were even sure what drug was being administered."

The following example confounds me when I try to use the explanation above to determine whether "none" should be plural or singular here. To my mind, it should clearly be singular in this case. Yet it seems to me that "none" could refer to “not any things” here, as in, "not any regrets".

"Lorena Ochoa walked away from competitive golf with grace and humility, the same way she walked in. For sure, as she might say, there were few regrets. None were important enough to mention to reporters on Friday, when she preferred to accentuate the positive, again, one of her endearing traits."

QUESTION:
So, by according to the explanation above, what would be an example in which "none" *must* be followed by a singular verb?