Either (the same applies to the negative form - neither) is used when two
objects/situations are being covered, as in “I don’t like either blue or yellow”
Any is used when the number of alternatives is greater than two, as in “I don’t
like any of these colours”.
An important thing to note is that either is always followed
by or, and neither by nor, so it is “I don’t like either blue or yellow” and “I
like neither blue nor yellow”.
A point that can lead to difficulties is that either and neither
are singular words, not plurals, so the grammatically correct thing to
say/write is “Either you or I am mistaken”, but that does not sound quite right
to most people, given that “Either you or I are mistaken” might sound more natural.
You can avoid this problem by phrasing it differently, such as “Either you are
mistaken or I am”, which sounds perfectly OK – whereas “Either you are mistaken
or I are” would clearly be wrong!
And how should you pronounce either/neither? There would
seem to be a fairly even split between “eether” and “eyether” – so the choice is
yours!
(I am referring in this piece to British English –
conventions could be different in other parts of the English-speaking world)
© John Welford
No comments:
Post a Comment