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hey on practice A of the barrons sat2 writing book, #14 says

"To the disappointment of the crowd, neither the president nor any of his aides were able to attend the ceremony"

the key says that "were" should be "was" ..can anyone explain this to me? thanks

By Hertish (Hertish) on Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - 05:02 pm: Edit

the verb should refer to the noun closest to "neither" i think

By Chamonix (Chamonix) on Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - 05:02 pm: Edit

when using neither/nor, its always singular
when using either/or, its always plural

By Xjay2max (Xjay2max) on Thursday, April 15, 2004 - 01:13 am: Edit

no.

Neither the present nor any of his aides was...

not were. i believe that "any" is a singular subject.

i believe the rule for either/or, neither/nor is you look at the subject right before the verb - that determines whether the conjugated verb is plural or singular.

By Gottagetout (Gottagetout) on Thursday, April 15, 2004 - 01:54 am: Edit

Negative groups are singular. You only have to remember one case, however. It is perfectly acceptable to replace "Neither...nor..." with "None of the important people...". Because "none" is singular and people is just the object of a preposition, the verb that follows the phrase must agree with "none" and be conjugated singularly.

See for reference: http://www.bartleby.com/64/C001/038.html