I grew up with the phrase "slim to none", which means that the chances of an event occurring fall somewhere between slim and none. In other words, there is a scale with multiple options (admittedly the options are slim from the get go).
<---->
SLIM | | | | | | NONE
In a book I am reading currently, I encountered the phrase "slim and none". I initially thought there was either an unintentional conjunction error or that the author grew up mishearing the phrase.
A quick Google search told me that there really are two semantically-sensible versions.
The alternate version, "slim and none", simply eliminates the scalar aspect of the phrase; thus the chances of an event occurring are either slim or none.
SLIM [ ] NONE [ ]
I can't believe that I had never heard this alternate version. Now I am wondering if it is a regional variation. Please help me by commenting below with your preferred version and your region of origin.
I did feel a bit better about my lack of familiarity with the non-scalar version when I graphed the two versions on Google Ngram.
