SC either/neither used without or/nor is always singular?

[gobaudd]

In the 4th edition sentence correction guide on page 39 at the bottom it talks about "or, either ... or, & neither ... nor." It notes an exception when the words "either" or "neither" are used without "or" or "nor." It says in this case the words take only singular verbs. Is the below a correct example of this?

Neither of the coaches is going to the beach.

Is that sentence correct or should it be

Neither of the coaches are going to the beach.

[gobaudd]

Also at the top of page 88 it says

"Which or whom sometimes follow prepositions: ..."

shouldn't that be FOLLOWS ?

[gokul_nair1984]

Neither of the coaches is going to the beach.

This is the correct usage

When either and neither are subjects, they always take singular verbs.
Examples:
Neither of them is available to speak right now.
Either of us is capable of doing the job.

When a singular and plural subject are connected by either/or or neither/nor, put the plural subject last and use a plural verb.

Example:
Neither Jenny nor the others are available.
Neither she nor I am going to the festival.

Also at the top of page 88 it says

"Which or whom sometimes follow prepositions: ..."

shouldn't that be FOLLOWS ?

Which or Whom follow..( Because it is either Which or Whom. Not Both)
Which and Whom follows..(Because they both do. Hence Plural)

[tim]

Sorry Gokul, I think you have it backwards. Gobaudd, you caught us. :) Classic case of our writers going with something that sounded good at the expense of following through on correct GMAT grammar in the supplementary text of our books. A big lesson here though is that THE OG DOES THIS TOO, so be careful. You will often find examples in CR or RC passages, or in their explanations, that violate the GMAT’s SC rules. Don’t allow this to create confusion in your mind about the rules..

[gokul_nair1984]

Tim:

[url]
http://www.grammarbook.com/grammar/subjectVerbAgree.asp[/url]

I don't know whether in GMAT land english grammar is treated differently.

[tim]

Hi Gokul,
First thing to keep in mind is that yes sometimes in GMAT land grammar is different from what you see elsewhere. In this case though, GMAT grammar agrees with everyone else, but "follow" is the plural verb and "follows" is the singular verb. That's what you got backwards..

[aditi]

1-Tigers,lions and leopards are wild animals,neither has been domesticated till date.
2-Rita, Mita and Zita are Zeeshann's sisters, neither has graduated.
3-The crowd, the committee and the team are waiting for the match to start.Neither has eaten since morning.
4-Sunflowers and lilies are beautiful flowers.Neither blooms at night.

Are these examples correct with respect to the usage of neither.
Do all the examples require "of them"


Thanks in advance

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

Aditi, where are these examples from? If you made them up yourself, then watch out for spending too much time splitting grammatical hairs: keep your study time GMAT focused by using examples from real GMAT questions.

I would say that neither can introduce two (or sometimes more) items. E.g. "Neither Alfie, Ben, nor Cristina has watched that movie." However, in my opinion it's wrong to use neither to refer to a list of more than two items. I think your example - "Tigers,lions and leopards are wild animals,neither has been domesticated till date" - is wrong and should read "Tigers,lions and leopards are wild animals; none has been domesticated till date". Note that I've added a semi-colon to connect the two complete sentences (check out the rule for this in the SC Strategy Guide Glossary under "run-on sentence"). As for adding "of them", I think that the sentence works fine both with and without.

[aditi]

Thanks a Lot Sage.

As a result of lack of examples i made up those sentences for the rule i found in MGMAT SC- Note that when the words either or neither are in a sentence alone (without or or nor), they are considered singular and take only singular verbs.

My bad for the run on- should have added a but,

So can i summarize as when Neither/either is used without the nor/or, only two items can be used . But each of the items can be singular or plural for e.g.

Sunflowers and lilies are beautiful flowers.Neither blooms at night . ( both the items (subjects) are plural)
Sage and Ron are amazing instructors but neither replies to my posts ( both items (subjects) are singular) ( pardon me for the example--just in jest)

[cgentry]

Looks good! The only thing you may want to do: add in the "who" to increase the clarity, even though GMAC may not.

Instead of "Neither blooms at night", go ahead and make it "Neither flower blooms at night." Also, "Neither instructor replies to my posts."

But again, this is optional. I think your work is find as it stands.