Is not any unidiomatic negative subject?

[qianruS779]

Hi Instructor,

I would like to ask you if not any is unidiomatic negative subject.
For instance:
Not any appreciable increase in the river was caused by the storm yesterday
No appreciable increase in the river was caused by the storm yesterday.

Thank you very much

[RonPurewal]

did you actually see this in a problem?

remember—this is a multiple-choice test.
if you see this thing in some choices, vs. ‘no’/‘none’ in other choices, then you have a clear winner and a clear loser.

i can’t see any value in trying to make absolute statements (e.g., ‘unidiomatic’), because it will ALWAYS be easier just to compare the choices with each other.

[qianruS779]

Hi Ron,

Yes, it is an explanation from OG 16: not any appreciable increase is awkward, unidiomatic negative subject. I understand that the answer and the explanation from OG are always true, so will I have to memorize that not any cannot be a negative subject?

Thank you very much.

[RonPurewal]

I understand that the answer and the explanation from OG are always true

the correct answers themselves (i.e., the actual sentences)? yes.

the explanations? oh no. no no no nooooooo no.

(you must be relatively new here; i've made this point in many, many different places on this forum.)
the explanations are usually incomplete, and often actually wrong.

the answer explanations were not written by the people who created the problems (presumably because those people's time is too valuable). rather, they were 'outsourced' to writers of considerably lesser ability, with predictable results.

one time when it's particularly important to keep this in mind is when the answer explanation mentions that something is 'wordy' and/or 'awkward'.
remember, 'wordy' and/or 'awkward' is NEVER the sole reason why a choice is wrong. (first, these things constitute bad writing, but they're not objectively errors. second, if 'awkwardness' were a criterion, then the test would be fatally biased aganst non-native speakers of english, who are generally unable to acquire a sense of what is 'awkward').

[RonPurewal]

^^ specifically, if the explanation rules out some choice ONLY because it is 'awkward' (or 'wordy', or 'not graceful', or 'stilted', or anything else along those lines), then the truth is that the person who wrote the explanation just didn't know how to explain that choice.

[RonPurewal]

anyway, i found the problem you're talking about.
that problem gives you a choice between 'not any X' and 'no X'. that's a very easy choice.

there's no reason to try to make a 'rule' here, because they aren't going to stop giving you multiple-choice options!
we should always avoid making easy things hard.
(:

[RonPurewal]

...and, since this is an OG item, the thread is now locked.

(the forum rules say that OG is a banned source. this means that it's really a banned source—i.e., we shouldn't discuss problems from it.
i.e., the rule is NOT 'let's find ways to ask about OG problems without citing the OG problems.'
thank you.)