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Anonymous Posted 16 years ago
Grammar

Nor without neither

Is it okay to use nor without neither? I'll give an example to explain why.

She could not disregard the utter cruelty of the leader nor his nonchalant approach to problems.

Wouldn't it be weird to have neither after disregard (without the not preceding disregard)? In shorter sentences, it would be okay. But in these sentences, would it be better to ignore neither?
  

Top answer

It occurs sometimes, as a way of stressing the second negation, but it doesn't quite solve the problem. ' is wrong, too. The way to do it is 'She could disregard neither the utter cruelty...

— Mister Micawber

  • It occurs sometimes, as a way of stressing the second negation, but it doesn't quite solve the problem.
  • ' is wrong, too.
  • The way to do it is 'She could disregard neither the utter cruelty...
  • nor his nonchalant'.
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3 Answers
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It occurs sometimes, as a way of stressing the second negation, but it doesn't quite solve the problem. And 'She could neither disregard...nor his nonchalant..' is wrong, too. The way to do it is 'She could disregard neither the utter cruelty... nor his nonchalant'.
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Thanks, Micawber. I understand that 'neither, nor' combination can be used in this way. But it sounds odd in long sentences. If it's a short sentence (it is neither black nor white), it is okay. Is there some other way of putting it?

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I don't know offhand of another similar way of putting it, but I can tell you that sentence length is not an impediment to the coordinate conjunction neither...nor. And it is certainly not more so than for other alternatives.
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