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Neither-nor: Correlative Conjunctions
Over 30 years ago, I had a British boyfriend named Philip. He was sophisticated, well educated, and played classical music (beautifully) on his grand piano.
That alone would have been enough to blind me to his imperfections. But on top of all that greatness, his wife had died and he was raising their daughter Melanie on his own. In my eyes, he verged on sainthood, and I was in awe of him.
One day, Philip said something I have never forgotten:
Neither Melanie nor I watches much television.
Watches? Really? I would have put it this way:
Neither Melanie nor I watch much television.
Dead certain that Philip the Great couldn’t be wrong, I kept my preference for watch a secret, substituting alternatives such as these for neither-nor:
Melanie and I don’t watch much television.
I don’t watch much television; Melanie doesn’t, either.
I don’t watch much television and neither does Melanie.
And wouldn’t you know it? I was right all along! After all these years, I have finally learned that according to the Chicago Manual of Style, compound subjects joined with either-or or neither-nor take the form of the verb that goes with the subject closest to the verb, in both number and person. Here are a few examples:
Neither Sarah nor Sam plans to attend the concert.
Either George or the twins are going to bring the sushi.
Neither Henry nor his sons have a Prius.
Neither the boys nor Henry has a Prius.
And (drumroll):
Neither Melanie nor I watch much television.
By the way, neither-nor is a pair of correlative conjunctions. Like other correlative conjunctions (as-as, if-then, either-or, both-and, where-there, so-as, and not only-but also), neither and nor used together “join successive clauses that depend on each other to form a complete thought.” (Chicago Manual of Style.)
Cheers,
Tara Treasurefield
Number Contest Winner
The winner is Dina Roberts. You can get to know her at her blog, Let Them Eat Corn. Congratulations, Dina!
Here is the sentence that needed work:
In his office, there was a fax machine, two four-drawer file cabinets, and an old tangerine-colored iMac.
And this is how Dina fixed it:
In his office, there were a fax machine, two four-drawer file cabinets, and an old tangerine-colored Mac.
Dina changed the singular verb was to the plural verb were, because the subject is plural (fax machine, two four-drawer file cabinets, and an old tangerine-colored iMac.
When the subject follows the verb in a sentence, and it’s difficult to see what’s what, reversing the order often helps:
A fax machine, two four-drawer file cabinets, and an old tangerine-colored Mac was in his office.
Sounds funny, doesn’t it? That’s because with the subject first, it’s glaringly obvious that it’s plural and needs a plural verb.
Dina also made another change:
I changed iMac to Mac because in the Mac world, Macs are already older than iMacs.
That’s fine, but I’d leave it alone. Specificity gives writing substance and creates a visual image–in this case, the very specific visual image of an old tangerine-colored iMac.
And if the only tangerine-colored Macs are iMacs, that’s all the more reason to let iMac stand.
Cheers,
Tara Treasurefield
Tara’s Writing Studio
