"No" versus "Any"

Today’s topic is “no” versus “any.” Too many times people interchange these two words and think that it is grammatically correct. This comes down to when you hear a person interchange "no" inplace of "any" it just sounds wrong. Common examples heard from individuals are “There isn’t no way that I am going to get that done by tomorrow.”


When watching television a contestant on a game show said, “My arms can’t go no more further.”

Most of the mistakes occur when people are speaking to other people, but when driving on the expressway there was a truck with a motto of “There ain’t no easier way.” Not knowing what that company was trying to promote or sell, the owner should have checked to make sure their motto was grammatically correct. With incorrect uses of words, reputations and standings of companies can be jeopardized (not to mention using correct grammar will help with the embarrassment factor). People are very critical about the way other speak, with grammar changing on a continual basis everyone will think that what they are saying is right.

Correct Uses of “No”

“No” is used more broadly than “yes,” and functions as a negative determiner. “No” can appear before any class of noun: count nouns (No dogs are ugly), mass nouns (There is no fruit in the jello) and abstract nouns (No fighting is welcome). With count nouns, “no” also serves as the determiner that corresponds to the natural numbers used to measure the size of sets, the stand-alone and pronoun form that corresponds to it is none (No sports team is the same; none have a perfect season, either).

Correct Uses of “Any”

As an adjective, “any” is useful, but overused, intensifier (There isn’t any way that I will perform in front of a crowd tomorrow). “Any” can also be used as a determiner, a guaranteed selection from a set (You can have any piece of candy that you want). Used with negative: I haven’t had any money for a week. When used as a pronoun any applies with thing(s) or person(s) (Any may apply).

Summary

To sum up this constant mistake, there are times to use the word “no” and the word “any,” but it seems that more people use the word “no” because that is what they are taught when they were young. With slogans such as Just Say No, we as individuals are more prone to use the word “no.” Also using “no” when constructing sentences, especially when speaking, seems to be more acceptable as more people continue to talk that way. “Any” however, is used more to intensify the point that is trying to be made.

References

Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_(word).
Wikitionary, http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ANY.