<p>According to silverturtle’s guide it depends on the verb… however, in my PR book it said that neither was singular as in the case of “Neither of the political parties (are concerned) with …”
It should be is concerned which does sound better but who’s right?</p>
<p>Neither of the political parties are… = Both of the political parties are not…</p>
<p>Neither is plural because it refers back to two things.</p>
<p>You need to be careful, because there are two separate situations.</p>
<p>(1) “Neither” without “nor”, as in “Neither of the political parties is concerned with Egypt.”
(2) “Neither” with “nor” as in “Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are concerned with Egypt.”</p>
<p>If it is “neither” only, then it is singular and takes a singular verb even though the plural verb might sound better to us.</p>
<p>If you are using a “neither . . . nor” construction, then the verb is determined by the subject term CLOSER to the verb.</p>
<p>[Subject</a> and Verb Agreement | Grammar Rules](<a href=“http://www.grammarbook.com/grammar/subjectVerbAgree.asp]Subject”>Subject-Verb Agreement | Examples and Rules)
I think Rule 11 applies here because you have a prepositional phrase, making “neither” your subject.</p>
<p>got2begreen… thanks where are you getting this from though? i just want to be sure. and chillaxin, you’re so wrong. lol. would like to hear some input from silverturtle if possible.</p>
<p>edit, according to that site, neither without the nor is always singular…</p>
<p>Post #3 is correct.</p>
<h1>5, it’s funny how silverturtle’s succinct response is all that’s needed to settle the discord.</h1>
<p>“Neither” by itself is like “each”, so “neither… is correct” approximately equals “each is not correct”.</p>
<p>I always remembered it as “neither” having to do with the nearest noun, as in:</p>
<p>*Neither the teacher nor the students know the solution to the math problem.</p>
<p>Neither the students nor the teacher knows the solution to the math problem.*</p>
<p>So in the original case listed, “neither of the political parties” is saying neither the democratic party nor the republican party, which is why it should be singular. Had it been “democrats and republicans”, it would’ve been plural…</p>
<p>Anyway, so glad I’m not taking the SAT :p.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is not a good explanation of why the original sentence requires a singular verb. Consider the following:</p>
<p>Person X says: What about the teachers and the students?
Person Y responds: Neither of the groups knows the answer.</p>
<p>According to your reasoning, Person Y is really saying:</p>
<pre><code> Neither the teachers nor the students know the answer
</code></pre>
<p>And hence Person Y should have used a plural verb. But - that’s wrong.</p>
<p>But in that case, aren’t you referring to “teachers” and “students” each collectively as a group, a singular noun? Because if you actually use the words “teachers” and “students” in Person Y’s response, then, like you said, “knows” becomes “know” instead.</p>
<p>(I’m just asking, since you’re probably right :).)</p>
<p>That’s a fair point Calico. I thought about it while writing the post, but I was trying to find an example parallel to the one you hinted at when you said “democrats and republicans” and I decided my example WAS parallel. But at the same time, I don’t disagree with what you said in response.</p>
<p>Hmmmm… maybe I need to sleep on it …</p>
<p>I would personally use “Neither of them are” and “None of them are” in some cases. These forms have LONG been standard in writing, along with, obviously, the forms with the singular verbs, so the SAT would generally not test you (as far as I know) on something like this where a certain form of logic seems to contradict popular and historical usage. Testing directly on this “distinction” would mean controversy. Such a question would also suggest that the distinction is essential to good writing and that it even helps one’s communication to subscribe to the restricted usage: Both have been used in good writing for centuries, and neither communicates an idea better than the other.</p>
<p>Of course this is just a lesson in communication that I think everyone should follow in the real world, outside of the SAT (i.e., look at how good writers have written in the past, go for what is the most effective in communicating what you want to say, accept that language changes over time and that one thing isn’t necessarily incorrect just because some people believe that it is or because it used to be considered incorrect, etc.) If the SAT does happen to test you on this, then pick the singular form because doing so follows “reasoning” and the SAT is a reasoning test.</p>
<p>@crazy, is your post of “neither of them are” in response to my question or to the ones posed by calico/green?</p>
<p>It was in response to yours. But the same applies to “neither … nor” constructions. “Neither of them is” and “Neither X nor Y is” (where Y is singular) and “Neither X nor Y are” (where Y is plural) are all standard (following the standard “rules”), but my stance is that “Neither of them are,” “Neither X nor Y are” (where Y is singular and X is plural), and “Neither X nor Y is” (where Y is plural and X is singular) are all acceptable, too, just because there’s really no reason to discriminate in those cases for the sake of communication. My point is that I don’t think the SAT will test you directly on these constructions because there really is no universal rule for whether “neither” is always singular or always plural and such a rule does not help communication.</p>
<p>i see, but in testing cases, neither is always singular when it is without nor?</p>
<p>Like I said I don’t think they would test you directly on that on the SAT. But if they did then I would assume so (that it is always singular).</p>