Learn English – Should I use ‘neither one’, ‘none of them’ or ‘neither one of them’ in this question

ellipsisphrase-choice

I'd like to form this question:

Is she beautiful or smart or {neither one/ neither one of them/none of them}?

So do I need 'of them' for sure or can I omit 'of them' and say 'neither one' or only 'neither'? I'd like to keep it simplest possible.

Which one is correct?

  1. Is she beautiful or smart or neither one?

  2. Is she beautiful or smart or neither one of them?

  3. Is she beautiful or smart or none of them?

  4. Is she beautiful or smart or neither?

  5. Is she beautiful or smart or none?

The duplicate question does not answer my question. My question is not about single plural verb harmony. It is about whether I can omit and if so to what extent I can omit to give the same meaning in simplest way and that according to what one prefers neither over none or vice versa.

Best Answer

It seems like you are trying trying to convey the message in the simplest way possible, regardless of grammaticality. So, my response relies on what I think sounds natural. Also, I assume that you want to keep this specific

Is she beautiful or smart or X?

structure.

I assume that there is a woman and you are interested in two particular traits, being beautiful and being smart. There three options and only one can be chosen:

  • beautiful
  • smart
  • not beautiful and not smart

Your 1. expresses the scenario, but neither one seems redundant since the question is brief. In my opinion, you don't need the word one.

If your 1. is redundant, then your 2. is definitely redundant. It still expresses the scenario, but "one of them" is excessive. Again, I am assuming that you want the simplest answer. In this instance, I am taking simple to mean terse.

Your 3. doesn't sound right. To me, of them suggests that there are more than two traits up for consideration. None also suggest to me that there are more than two traits up for consideration. So none of them strongly suggests that to me.

As you can imagine, I like 4. best. Regardless of whether we use the word neither correctly or not, we understand that it is to be used with two things. Because of this strong association with two things, I think it is natural to use neither here. In this instance, neither implies exactly "not trait one nor trait two".

I don't like none in 5. Again, none suggests use with more than two things to me, which is not the case here.

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