EXAMPLES. 1. We can’t keep people from talking

1. We can’t keep people from talking. There’s no way in the world to put an end to such talk. 2. I went into the office and called my answering service. There were no messages. 3. There isn’t much I want to see. 4. «I’ll come a little way with you.» The Superior felt in the pocket of his soutane for a cheroot, but there wasn’t one there. 5. She was always the wife of George Lockwood, so much so that in the two towns there were not a dozen women and not a man who called her by her first name. 6. He was asking if there was any bacon, and there wasn’t any. 7. I obeyed, there wasn’t anything else to do under the circumstances. 8. Pausing in admiration before the sink he observed that there was not a scratch on the spotless enamel, not a stain on the bright metal. No leaking taps, no rust anywhere, no smoke smudges, no sagging shelves, no worn oilcloth, no trash piles in corners, no unsightly garbage cans, and (Heaven be praised!) no black beetles. There was, indeed, not one of the homely discomforts among which he had grown up and without which he was lonely.9. There’s nothing to be done about what has already happened.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

1. The negation no is never followed by a noun with an article; nor is it followed by the pronouns any (anyone, anything, anybody), some (something, somebody), none (nothing, nobody), another, by the adjectives типу, much, few, little, enough, single.

Normally, it is followed by a noun without any article. The noun may be modified by an adjective or the pronoun other.

2. Normally, the negation not is not followed by the pronouns other, some, something, somebody.

The negation not may be followed by the pronouns any, any other, another, anything, anyone, anybody; the adjectives many, much, few, little, enough, (a) single; the numerals one, two, three, etc. Many, much, few, little can be modified by so or very.

3. If the negation not is followed by a noun with the indefinite article, it generally means «not a single.» Compare: There are no clouds in the sky (На небе нет облаков). There is not a cloud in the s.ky (На небе ни облака).