alt Hacker NewsI think it extends from whatever rules govern the much-more-influential word "No", particularly for items which aren't normally capped at 1.
Notice how these are all plural, and in each case "no" could be substituted with "zero":
* "My shelf contains no books."
* "Snails have no legs."
* "What if there were no stars in the sky?"
You can't simply replace those examples with a singular noun: You're either forced to refactor the grammar or you end up with something that sounds weird/archaic. Ex:
* "My shelf contains no book." [Weird/archaic]
* "My shelf does not contain a book. [Refactored]
Replies
“My shelf contains no book” almost wants to become “my shelf contains no such book!” to my eye. Like the book is cursed or forbidden, haha.
"My car has no steering wheel", though, so isn't it related to how many you'd expect?
> You can't naively rewrite those examples with a singular
"What if there was no star in the sky?" does not sound particularly weird, and we can find instances of people using that exact phrase. If we focus on the key aspect of that statement, "no star in the sky" appears to be commonly used.
[A lesser light asks Ummon⫽
What are the activities of a sramana>⫽
Ummon answers⫽
I have not the slightest idea⑊⫽
The dim light then says⫽
Why haven’t you any idea>⫽
Ummon replies⫽
I just want to keep my no-idea]
⠀I have no idea what you are talking about. /s
You are using examples which are typically plural. Consider instead these singular forms:
"My shelf contains no Elf-on-a-Shelf" / "My shelf contains no elephant" / "My shelf contains no Hemingway book." / "My shelf contains no book by Hemingway."
(For an example of the third: "Don't look there for a copy of 'The Old Man and the Sea'? I detest Hemingway, and my shelf contains no Hemingway book." In this case, 'no' means something like 'not even one'.)
As for the others, "legs" rarely come in a singular form. There is (usually) only one king for an entire population, and there is (usually) only one soul per creature, so these singular forms are just fine:
"Snails have no king." / "Snails have no soul."
There's usually a lot of stars, but our solar system has but one sun, making the following singular form just fine:
"What if there were no sun in the sky?"