Re: Confusion in the usage of neither.

Robert Lieblich <r_s_lieblich@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
dontbother wrote:
"Ms. Velveeta" <lvelasquezNOSPAM@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"M.W." <smell.the.curry@xxxxxxxxx> wrote

Thanks!

Any books that you would recommend, to consult on English Usage,
apart from Strunk and White?

Sorry. I don't have any recommendations. All my opinions on English
usage spring from a combination of being taught by grammar-obsessed
nuns in elementary school (my college courses never came up to their
standards) and having a pretty fabulous sense of logic (even if I do
say so myself). :-)

Logic? Did you say L-O-G-I-C? That won't get you very far here. You have
to be able to accept the illogic of usage and shrug your shoulders and
sigh when your logical antennae are battered by illogical idioms.

[ ... ]

I may have missed part of this thread, but it seems to me that no one
has pointed out the strong drift in the direction of pluralizing all
uses of "neither." For a while I made even more of a pest of myself
than usual by pointing out such uses by various RRs, not so much to
criticize them as simply to note another data point each time. I have
even given what I think is the reason behind this drift: "Neither" is
used in situations where ithe two more more items that follow it have
something in common -- something negative, if you will, but still in
common. "Both John and Mary are handsome" translates to "Neither John
nor Mary are ugly." Run a few hundred "neither"s through Google
groups for AUE and discover a lot of that sort of thing, even among us
masters of the tongue.

(Speaking of "masters of the tongue," has anyone seen Rey lately?)

He was here last week.

I don't want to get into arguments over whether this drift is or is
not a Good Thing. I still follow the traditional rule, but I've taken
not to "correcting" contrary instances. It's tough when some
newsreader says "Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan have been fully
pacified" and I have to smother a shouted "has," but I'm starting to
mellow out.

While discretion may be the better part of valor (which usually translates
into "Don't fight battles that you know you will lose" or "Wise is he who
runs away and lives to fight another day"), the highly opinionated among us
are happy to express our outrage at this sort of Goofy (the Disney
character) English. These are the shibboleths that try men's souls,
especially when the echoes from the storm drains thunder in opposition.

--
Franke: EFL teacher and medical editor
Posting from Taiwan. Unmunged email: /at/hush.ai
It's all in the way you say it, innit?
.

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