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The best explanation I’ve ever seen!

(3 Posts)
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Mollygo Fri 19-Jun-26 14:16:12

DGD asked me whether to use was or to use were in something she was writing.

^Neither the swimmers nor the club leader
was/were responsible for cleaning the pool.^

I thought I knew, but didn’t want to give her the wrong answer.
So we Googled it, and we discovered this.

www.facebook.com/share/r/1F8EKDuo2n/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Turned out I was right, but I’d never heard of proximity agreement

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JackyB Fri 19-Jun-26 15:03:50

I done do Facebook so I looked up does neither take singular or plural and it was as I thought:

... neither of them was.... is correct. "Neither of them were" is an informal form.

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Mollygo Fri 19-Jun-26 16:12:40

Sorry JackyB I didn’t realise it was FB till you mentioned it.
Evidently the verb matches the nearest noun.

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