5 exercises — choosing the correct negative form (none/no/not/neither/nor/without) in API specifications, error messages, code reviews, and technical documentation.
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
An error message reads: "The file was _____ found in the specified directory." Which negative form is correct?
Option B is correct."Not" negates verbs and verb phrases. In a passive construction ("was found"), the negative is formed by inserting "not" between the auxiliary and the past participle: "was not found." "No" (option A) modifies nouns: "no file was found." "None" (option C) is a pronoun meaning "not any" — it cannot modify a past participle. "Neither" (option D) requires a correlative pair: "neither found nor indexed." This is a fundamental rule: "not" + verb/verb phrase; "no" + noun.
2 / 5
A configuration spec states: "_____ of the fallback nodes responded within the timeout window." Which negative form correctly expresses that zero nodes responded?
Option C is correct."None of" is the correct form when negating a group introduced by "of" with a plural noun. "None of the fallback nodes" = not a single one of the nodes. "No" (option A) cannot directly precede "of the" — you need "None" or restructure: "No fallback node responded." "Neither" (option D) is only grammatical for exactly two items: "Neither of the two nodes…" If there are three or more nodes, "none" is required. This is a common error in technical incident reports and monitoring alerts.
3 / 5
A requirements document states: "The service must run _____ authentication and without caching to meet the performance target." Which negative construction correctly pairs with "without"?
Option C is correct.Parallel structure requires matching grammatical forms. "Without authentication and without caching" uses two parallel prepositional phrases. This is the clearest and most formal construction. Option D ("neither…nor") is also grammatically correct ("must run without neither authentication nor caching" — wait, that double-negates; correct version: "must run with neither authentication nor caching") but the sentence structure in the question is set up around "without", making parallel "without…and without…" the best completion. "No" (option B) and "not" (option A) break the prepositional structure.
4 / 5
A code review comment reads: "_____ the input sanitisation _____ the output encoding was implemented correctly in this PR." Which negative correlative pair is correct?
Option C is correct."Neither…nor" is the standard correlative conjunction pair for negating exactly two parallel elements: "Neither X nor Y." It asserts that both X and Y are negated. The verb agreement follows the noun closest to the verb: "Neither the sanitisation nor the encoding was implemented" (singular — both nouns are singular; if mixed, the closer noun governs agreement). "Neither…nor" is the correct formal construction for code reviews, security audits, and specification compliance checks. The other options are ungrammatical.
5 / 5
An API reference states: "This parameter is optional. Pass _____ value to use the system default." Which is correct?
Option A is correct."No + noun" is the correct construction when negating the presence of a noun object: "Pass no value." This is equivalent to "Do not pass a value" but more concise in technical reference documentation. "No" here functions as a negative determiner modifying "value." "None" (option D) is a pronoun — it cannot precede a noun ("none value" is ungrammatical). "Not a" (option B) is grammatically correct but less idiomatic in technical reference docs than "no." "Not any" (option C) is grammatically valid but overly verbose for a concise reference instruction.