"are not any" vs. "are no"

Question

My team works on reports that contain the statement "There are no recommendations in this area." Recently, someone outside of our organization criticized this. He stated that correct English was "There are not any recommendations in this area" and that "there are no" is substandard. I cannot find anything online that specifically states that "there are not any" is correct and "there are no" is not correct.

I'm hoping to find an actual grammar guide or reference that gives the rule regarding usage of these phrases. Thanks!

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

Good lord!  There is no respite from the amateur prescriptivists.  You will find nothing online or in any grammar book that suggests such a guideline.  There is no problem whatsoever with 'there are no recommendations'; in fact, it is better style than 'there are not any recommendations', as it is more concise.  Grammatically, they are simply alternatives.

Dimsumexpress · Answer

AnonymousHe stated that correct English was "There are not any recommendations in this area" and that "there are no" is substandard.

If you do a Google search with this query: "There are no reports", Over 8 million entries popped up. Given that fact that not every entry is true, majority can't be all using substandard English. For instance:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=23&cts=1330642794325&ved=0CDQQFjACOBQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.reuters.com%2Farticle%2F2011%2F12%2F14%2Fus-papua-quake-idUSTRE7BD0CA20111214&ei=WP9PT4DFEaHbiAKpzIm1Bg&usg=AFQjCNF-EhTbyt0gnTIwA3wBjGhLeQuPOQ&sig2=eShv0t5RZHAyy2eL4PdaBg (missing image) (missing image)

www.reuters.com/.../us-papua-quake-idUSTRE7BD0CA20111214Dec 14, 2011 – There are no reports of injuries or damage, but our managers are checking." The quake sent goods flying from the shelves of Lae's Foodmart ...

alosporin.3 However, there are no reports of large series of (missing image)

jama.ama-assn.org/content/275/15/1152.1.full.pdfby A Since - http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=related:Sj1Wa9wJwY0J:scholar.google.com/&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=9P5PT7bvKOqXiQK58om0Bg&sa=X&oi=science_links&ct=sl-related&resnum=10&ved=0CGcQzwIwCQ
alosporin.3 However, there are no reports of large series of patients with previous cefaclor serum sickness and subse¬ quent administration of other ß-lactam ...

There aren't any report and There are no report Essentially mean the same thing. But "There are no" is more commonly used in media and commerce context.

Here is another interesting find. If you do a "there are no" search, this use has 3,810,000,000 hits.If you do a "there are not any", only 320,000,000 hit popped up, which is still a staggering number, but compared to 3,810,000,000, the difference is clear. I think you can show this to the person who said made the smart comment.

"are not any" vs. "are no"

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