# Guinea pigs are neither from Guinea nor are they pigs



## Nexsus

Hi everyone!

I have a question concerning something I've read today. . . the sentence is : " Guinea pigs are neither from Guinea nor are they pigs. "
Well, I'd like to know why the subject  " they " is repeated with " nor ". I mean, I think it should be : " Guinea pigs are neither from Guinea nor are pigs " since I say " I can neither change it nor improve it. " and not " I can neither change it nor can I improve it. " 
Maybe I'm wrong and it is acceptable to say that, but I don't know any longer now, I'm quite confused! 

Any help would be greatly accepted.


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## Tofail

In "Guinea pigs are neither from Guinea nor are they pigs" you describe two things 'Guinea', and ' pigs', so you should indicate them as different things.   
In " I can neither change it nor can I improve it, you indicate the same thing 'it', so it is not needed to indicate them differently.


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## Mahantongo

There is an error in the original.  That which comes before the "neither" should apply to everything that follows it, but we then end up with "Guinea pigs are neither from Guinea" and "Guinea pigs are nor are they pigs", with an extra "are" for the second item.  The original sentence should be either
_Guinea pigs neither are from Guinea, nor are they pigs
_or_
Guinea pigs are neither from Guinea, nor pigs_.


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## Nexsus

Thank you guys!
But I must admit it is not clear at all to me yet.
Why do we say " ... nor are they pigs. " and not " ... nor they are pigs " ?


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## Tofail

_
I think, "Guinea pigs are neither from Guinea, nor pigs_." cant convey the meaning of the original text.


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## Mahantongo

Tofail said:


> _
> I think, "Guinea pigs are neither from Guinea, nor pigs_." cant convey the meaning of the original text.



Why do you think that, Tofail?  What do you think is missing?


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## Tofail

Actually, it seems awkward to me.


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## PaulQ

Nexsus said:


> Why do we say " ... nor are they pigs. " and not " ... nor they are pigs " ?


The negative (nor) reverses the word order, e.g. "I am not coming to your party, nor is my sister."


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## Tofail

Now I can understand why it felt awkward to me. Here, the sentence structure is: Guinea pigs are neither from..... nor pig. But, from Guinea and from pig could not be parallel in meaning. One thing may be come from Guinea, but can not be from pigs. The 'from' here  used  for originate from a 'place', it could not be replaced by 'originate from a species.'
We would not write: We neither study Math nor Banana. We should write: we neither study Math nor eat Banana.


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## Tofail

He speaks neither English nor French.(http://www.elearnenglishlanguage.com/blog/english-mistakes/either-and-neither/)
Is it possible to write: He neither speaks English nor French?
Things really seem puzzling to me. HOPE some one explain every thing.


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## Keith Bradford

Tofail said:


> Is it possible to write: He neither speaks English nor French? ...



No, because the two phrases need to be balanced, you need to be able to reverse them.  Here, you can't reverse the order - you can't say _He neither French nor speaks English_. 

You have a choice: *He speaks neither English nor French*, or else _*He neither speaks English nor speaks French*._


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## Tofail

Please say something about  my previous ( 11.54 pm and 12.03 am) posts.


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## RM1(SS)

Tofail said:


> Now I can understand why it felt awkward to me. Here, the sentence structure is: Guinea pigs are neither from..... nor pig. But, from Guinea and from pig could not be parallel in meaning. One thing may be come from Guinea, but can not be from pigs. The 'from' here  used  for originate from a 'place', it could not be replaced by 'originate from a species.'
> We would not write: We neither study Math nor Banana. We should write: we neither study Math nor eat Banana.


You're parsing it incorrectly.  "Guinea pigs are neither <from Guinea> nor <pigs>."


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## boozer

Mahantongo said:


> There is an error in the original. Y_
> Guinea pigs are neither from Guinea, nor pigs_.


With all due respect, I find the original quite correct. Unfortunately, I also find your example ambiguous, at best.  The second part seems to suggest Guinea pigs are not from pigs...


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## Tofail

Could you please read and comment on Mahantongo's post in this regard?


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## Mahantongo

Tofail said:


> Now I can understand why it felt awkward to me. Here, the sentence structure is: Guinea pigs are neither from..... nor pig. But, from Guinea and from pig could not be parallel in meaning. (etc.)


As RM1 notes, you have divided the sentence incorrectly.  You criticism would be valid if the sentence I had suggested was "Guinea pigs are *from neither* Guinea *nor *pigs" -- but that isn't the order of the words in the sentence that I gave.  Instead, my sentence was "Guinea pigs are *neither* *from* Guinea, nor pigs."  

Only words that precede the "neither" can apply to both alternatives; words that follow the "neither" do not apply to both, but only to the one alternative.   Because the word "from" follows "neither", it only goes with "Guinea" (as in "from Guinea"); you cannot say that it also combines with "pigs".


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## Mahantongo

boozer said:


> With all due respect, I find the original quite correct. Unfortunately, I also find your example ambiguous, at best.  The second part seems to suggest Guinea pigs are not from pigs...




The original is not correct, my example is not ambiguous, and the second part in no way suggests that Guinea pigs are "from pigs".  You may wish to read the sentence more carefully, and note the order of the words.  In my sentence, there is no word "from" preceding the word "neither", or following the word "nor", as your criticism seems to be suggesting.


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## boozer

Mahantongo said:


> The original is not correct, my example is not ambiguous, and the second part in no way suggests that Guinea pigs are "from pigs".  You may wish to read the sentence more carefully, and note the order of the words.  In my sentence, there is no word "from" preceding the word "neither", nor following the word "nor", as your criticism seems to be suggesting.


The original sounds good to me.
Here is an example from the BNC:
...I conclude that they come neither from Jerusalem nor Antioch, but Hell or Babylon.’
'From' does not have to precede 'neither' to make the sentence ambiguous. It can easily follow it, as seen above. Also, in the original the verb 'are' does not have to follow 'neither'. It can easily precede it, as far as I am concerned.


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## boozer

Another example from the BNC that I find perfectly correct:
Individuals are neither slaves to their attitudes, nor are they necessarily masters of their own destiny.


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## velisarius

While agreeing with Mahantongo, I feel a little doubtful whether we can use "neither" in this way since the two halves of the structure don't balance. Wouldn't it be better to say "Guinea pigs are not from Guinea, nor are they pigs". 

Dolphins are neither fish nor amphibians. Here there is balance and the sentence feels more natural.


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## boozer

velisarius said:


> While agreeing with Mahantongo...


Do you agree that the original is incorrect?  And, if you do, what about my example in post 19?


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## velisarius

Hi boozer,

I was agreeing with the explanation in post #16, which seems very logical to me. I do think the original is incorrect, or at best very awkward.

I like your example in post #19, with its parallel or balanced structure.


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## boozer

velisarius said:


> Hi boozer,
> 
> I was agreeing with the explanation in post #16, which seems very logical to me. I do think the original is incorrect, or at best very awkward.
> 
> I like your example in post #19, with its parallel or balanced structure.


Objection, Milady.  The example in post 19 has the exact same structure as the original...


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## velisarius

Individuals are neither slaves to their attitudes, nor are they necessarily masters of their own destiny.

You are quite right counsel. This judge needs to take a break and possibly sleep on it.


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## Mahantongo

boozer said:


> The original sounds good to me.
> Here is an example from the BNC:
> ...I conclude that they come neither from Jerusalem nor Antioch, but Hell or Babylon.’
> 'From' does not have to precede 'neither' to make the sentence ambiguous. It can easily follow it, as seen above. Also, in the original the verb 'are' does not have to follow 'neither'. It can easily precede it, as far as I am concerned.



As far as you are concerned, you may do anything you like.  However, as far as the rest of us are concerned, there are some other principles to consider.

As Keith Bradford noted, in order for a "neither... nor...." construction to be correct, you need to be able to take the two parts (that is, the "neither" alternative and the "nor" alternative) exactly as they are and reverse them without changing them.  

Consider the sentence "The ancient Egyptians had neither *telephones* nor *airplanes*."  Because this sentence is correct, I can reverse the order and get "The ancient Egyptians had neither *airplanes *nor *telephones."  *However if I had made the original "The ancient Egyptians neither *had telephones* nor *airplanes*", when I reverse that I get "The ancient Egyptians neither *airplanes* nor *had telephones*", which makes no sense.  The inability to reverse the components of that sentence indicates its structure is incorrect. 

The original sentence provided by Nexsus was "Guinea pigs are neither *from Guinea* nor *are they pigs*."  If you try to reverse that without changing the words, what you get is "Guinea pigs are neither *are they pigs *nor *from Guinea*".  The problem with the reversed sentence (note the double "are") shows that there was an error in the original.  My suggested alternative of "Guinea pigs are neither *from Guinea*, nor *pigs*" reverses to "Guinea pigs are neither *pigs*, nor *from Guinea."* which is grammatical, and in no way ambiguous.

The example you gave from the BNC was written by John Bunyan, who was not the most educated of men and occasionally expressed himself awkwardly.  If  you try to reverse "they come neither from Jerusalem nor Antioch", what you get is "they come neither Antioch nor from Jerusalem", which is garbled.  It would have been better for Bunyan to write "they come from neither Jerusalem nor Antioch", which would have avoided the problem.


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## boozer

The advice you give is good, Mahantongo, but it is not universally applicable. I do not buy all that, at least not enthusiastically. Is the other example I gave also written by an illiterate man?


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## Mahantongo

boozer said:


> I do not buy all that, at least not enthusiastically. Is the other example I gave also written by an illiterate man?



"Also"?  "Illiterate"?  I do not recall that I called Bunyan "illiterate", boozer -- and I rather think that you don't recall such a statement on my part, either.

As for your other example, it comes from a social psychology paper by Michael Billig.  I am sure that the quality of Professor Billig's scholarship in his field is beyond question.  On the other hand, social scientists are not always the most elegant of prose stylists, and I note that the good professor makes the same error on a following page when he writes "_This tactic, which blurs the conventional distinction between pure theory and applied work, stems from the belief that theory in social psychology *is neither produced as an end in itself, nor to generate research programmes*_."  While I would not call Professor Billig "illiterate", doesn't that construction strike you as awkward?


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## boozer

Mahantongo said:


> "Also"?  "Illiterate"?  I do not recall that I called Bunyan "illiterate", boozer -- and I rather think that you don't recall such a statement on my part, either.
> 
> As for your other example, it comes form a social psychology paper by Michael Billig.  I am sure that the quality of Professor Billig's scholarship in his field is beyond question.  On the other hand, social scientists are not always the most elegant of prose stylists, and I note that the good professor makes the same error on a following page when he writes "_This tactic, which blurs the conventional distinction between pure theory and applied work, stems from the belief that theory in social psychology *is neither produced as an end in itself, nor to generate research programmes*_."  Wile I will not call Professor Billig "illiterate", doesn't that construction strike you as awkward?


Honestly, yes  it does strike me as somewhat awkward, that second quote you gave. But not the one that I gave - that one is good English for me. Just because someone is capable of uttering an oddity every once on a while does not mean he/she is always wrong...

Edit: This is beginning to look like a trial where one of the attorneys attempts to shake the credibility of a witness summoned by the opposing side.


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## PaulQ

Mahantongo said:
			
		

> "The ancient Egyptians had neither *telephones* nor *airplanes*." Because this sentence is correct, I can reverse the order and get "The ancient Egyptians had neither *airplanes *nor *telephones."*


Here, we see you reversing only the nouns.





> However if I had made the original "The ancient Egyptians neither *had telephones* nor *airplanes*", when I reverse that I get "The ancient Egyptians neither *airplanes* nor *had telephones*",


Here, you move the verb with the first noun.

If you leave the verb alone, you get "The ancient Egyptians *had *neither *telephones* nor *airplanes*", which is fine.

I cannot see the point of moving the verb.

The OED remarks:





> The regular position of neither is immediately before the first of the alternative expressions, but it is frequently placed earlier in the sentence. The ‘unbalanced’ placing of neither is commonly criticized by grammarians from the mid 18th cent. onwards.


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## Loob

Boozer, you're not alone - I wouldn't have batted an eyelid at the "guinea pig" sentence either, perhaps because I've heard it so many times.  I do try to use parallel structures myself, but there's something about the "They are neither X, nor are they Y" which somehow feels 'parallel', even though it isn't.

Perhaps the answer lies in the OED comment quoted by Paul.


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## kalamazoo

Getting back to the original question, I would say you should not say "Guinea pigs are neither from Guinea nor are pigs" which to me is almost suggesting saying that neither pigs nor guinea pigs are from Guinea.  The original sentence is okay and and I think you need to say "nor are they pigs" because the two ideas are not parallel.  In other words, I could say "X is neither from A nor from B" in place of "X is neither from A nor is it from B" because 'from A" and "from B" are parallel.  But I cant reduce "X is neither from A nor is X a good solution" to "X is neither from A nor a good solution" because "from A" and "[being] a good solution" are not parallel.


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## Andygc

I've been wondering about this thread. I've read the sentence in the OP over and over again, and it still seems a perfectly normal sentence. I was wondering what was wrong with me, but PaulQ's and Loob's posts have reassured me. As far as I'm concerned it's fine - unlike Michael Billig's sentence. It's the infinitive in the nor phrase that throws that badly off course.


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## boozer

Andygc said:


> As far as I'm concerned it's fine - unlike Michael Billig's sentence. It's the infinitive in the nor phrase that throws that badly off course.


Yes, that would be the second sentence quoted by Mahantongo and I also agreed it was awkward...


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## Mahantongo

PaulQ said:


> [/B]Here, we see you reversing only the nouns.Here, you move the verb with the first noun.
> 
> If you leave the verb alone, you get "The ancient Egyptians *had *neither *telephones* nor *airplanes*", which is fine.
> 
> I cannot see the point of moving the verb.


Paul, my point was to show what would happen if I had placed the verb after the "neither", thus making it apply to only one of the two alternatives.  Note that I was giving this as an example of an incorrect construction of a "neither... nor..." sentence.  I knew that the first one was fine, and the second was not, but that was the whole point; I was explaining why such a sentence is "unbalanced", and subject to the criticism noted by the OED


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## RM1(SS)

I just cannot see the original sentence as being correct.

Guinea pigs are neither from Guinea nor are they pigs. 
Guinea pigs are neither from Guinea nor pigs. 
Guinea pigs neither are from Guinea nor are pigs. 

(And if I were writing this sentence myself, I would put a comma after _Guinea_.)


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## Loob

This is becoming intriguing. Of the versions discussed so far in this thread, the one that feels the most wrong to me is the one with "neither" before uninverted "are":_ Guinea pigs neither are from Guinea nor are pigs.
_Hmm...


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## Andygc

There's clearly a marked division in what is seen as idiomatic. Perhaps it's the way we construe "neither". If we take an alternative version of the sentence we can have "Guinea pigs are not from Guinea nor are they pigs." I take it that nobody objects to that. We expect the negation to follow the verb: "Guinea pigs not are from Guinea ...."  is manifestly wrong. In this sentence "neither" serves to intensify the meaning; it emphasises the statement. Because I have a logical place for "not" I expect "neither" to be in the same place. Thus, for me, the ungrammatical (by prescription) sentence "Guinea pigs are neither from Guinea nor are they pigs." is the idionatic one.

"Guinea pigs neither are from Guinea nor are pigs." is, for me, a forced sentence, similar to sentences contorted to avoid placing a preposition at the end.

As for "Guinea pigs are neither from Guinea nor pigs." Who has ever claimed that Guinea pigs came from pigs? To make sense that has to be rewritten: "Guinea pigs are neither pigs nor from Guinea."


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## RM1(SS)

Andygc said:


> As for "Guinea pigs are neither from Guinea nor pigs." Who has ever claimed that Guinea pigs came from pigs? To make sense that has to be rewritten: "Guinea pigs are neither pigs nor from Guinea."


"...are neither <from Guinea> nor <pigs>" makes perfect sense to me - they're not from Guinea, and they're not pigs.  _From_ would have to be moved outside the neither/nor to make it apply to pigs: "...are from neither Guinea nor pigs."


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## Andygc

The problem there is the habitual elision of prepositions in English.  I take it you would find "He is from Italy or Spain" identical in meaning to "He is from Italy or from Spain". That also applies to "He is not from Italy or Spain", and so to "He is neither from Italy nor Spain". "Guinea pigs are neither from Italy or Spain" is equivalent, as is "Guinea pigs are neither from Guinea nor pigs." Where's the difference?


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## Myridon

Andygc said:


> "Guinea pigs are neither from Italy or Spain" is equivalent, as is "Guinea pigs are neither from Guinea nor pigs." Where's the difference?


You need to include these two sentences in generating your "rule". 
"Guinea pigs are neither Spain nor from Italy."
"Guinea pigs are neither pigs nor from Guinea."
Most native speakers will approve of three out of four of these sentences despite the protest of mathematicians.  English is neither transitive nor commutative in the strict mathematical sense but sometimes it's a little of each.


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## Andygc

I'm not generating a rule, I'm just as curious as Loob about the difference in perception between contributors to this thread. The two sentences you add do not have an elided "from", so they aren't actually relevant to the point I was making, which is about expectation.

For me "Guinea pigs are neither from Guinea nor pigs" has potential for immediate confusion. I understand that RM1(SS) would immediately perceive it as a straightforward sentence. I, on the other hand, don't. I automatically perceive it as meaning "from pigs" even though that is clearly ridiculous. That is, I think, why the structure "Guinea pigs are neither from Guinea nor are they pigs." seems entirely normal to me. The negation of "are" is where I expect it to be, and the "nor are they" removes any possible confusion.


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## Keith Bradford

Perhaps the problem is that we're looking at this question from the structural point of view, not the functional one.  For instance, if I wanted to convey the idea under discussion I'd probably say either: "Guinea pigs are neither pigs nor from Guinea" or "Guinea pigs are not from Guinea nor are they pigs."

Remember, the purpose of language is to convey meaning, not to comply with rules.  A person would be perverse to use an ambiguous or clumsy structure on the grounds that it was "correct", and then have to spend weeks explaining themself.  Better to choose a more elegant construction in the first place.


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## boozer

Andygc said:


> The problem there is the habitual elision of prepositions in English.  I take it you would find "He is from Italy or Spain" identical in meaning to "He is from Italy or from Spain". That also applies to "He is not from Italy or Spain", and so to "He is neither from Italy nor Spain". "Guinea pigs are neither from Italy or Spain" is equivalent, as is "Guinea pigs are neither from Guinea nor pigs." Where's the difference?


 Nicely put. Excellent.


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## Andygc

"Guinea pigs are neither pigs nor from Guinea" But Keith, the whole point of the original is that it mirrors the word order of "Guinea pigs".

"If we had some ham we'd have ham and eggs if we had some eggs." is more effective than
"If we had some eggs we'd have ham and eggs if we had some ham."  

I've been dying for ages for an excuse to slip that one in.


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## Tofail

Keith Bradford, But don't you think without fixed rules using language may turned in to whimsical one? Unfortunately, no one here try to summarize the suggestions given by members and explain the correct one(grammatically and common use).
Hope someone do it for us,the non native English speakers.


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## Loob

Tofail, the answer for you and other second-language speakers of English is: _make sure that the construction after "neither" parallels the construction after a subsequent "nor"._

You should be aware, though, that native speakers may vary this.

-------------

I still think _"Guinea pigs neither are from Guinea, nor are they pigs" _is really, really weird....


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## bennymix

The original sentence was (quoted by Nexsus):



> " Guinea pigs are neither from Guinea nor are they pigs. "



I agree with Boozer, and later, Andy, there is no problem in grammar or clarity.

Mahan's proposed improvement:



> "Guinea pigs are *neither* *from* Guinea, nor pigs."


 

I find less than clear, possibly ambiguous.   Further it highlights WHY the words 'are they' were inserted:  to read well and to clarify.  This echoes Andy, in post #41:
'the "nor are they" removes any possible confusion.'

Velisarius' suggestion effects the clarification (on Mahan's), as well, but is not necessarily better than the original--a bit flatter, perhaps;  less rhetorical flourish.

V:


> "Guinea pigs are not from Guinea, nor are they pigs".


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## Mahantongo

Frankly, had the sentence been entirely under my control, I would not have used the neither/nor construction, but if pressed for that I would have said "Guinea pigs are neither pigs, nor from Guinea" -- but I was stuck with the original sentence, and tinkered with it as it was presented.


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## Thomas Tompion

Reading this intriguing thread I was caused to wonder why Mahantongo finds the original so strange - it sounds entirely natural to me, as to many other BE contributors to the thread.

The obvious explanation, that there's an AE/BE divide here, doesn't seem to apply because here's an example from the Washington Post from 2009:

_Depp's Dillinger and Bale's Purvis are neither charming nor despicable, nor do they occupy that delicious gray area between the two. _(Source)

The reporter is Dan Zak, who was born in Buffalo, N.Y. in 1983.

I wonder

1.  if this sentence is close enough to the OP's _Guinea pigs are neither from Guinea nor are they pigs _to bear comparison.
2.  if this sentence too is unacceptable to the people who wouldn't accept the sentence in the OP.


Here's another, just in case anyone's becoming addicted - further supplies available from TT on application (normal office hours apply):

_As a member at the Cathedral of St. Phillip here in Atlanta, with a  6,000 membership, let me assure the letter writers that we are neither dying from within nor are we in bad shape as a congregation about pressing issues._ (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)


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## EStjarn

Thomas Tompion said:


> Reading this intriguing thread I was caused to wonder why Mahantongo finds the original so strange - it sounds entirely natural to me, as to many other BE contributors to the thread.



I will admit to having been quite affected by some of your comments made in this previous thread with regard to "not only-but also" structures, which are similar to "neither-nor" structures in the sense that, to express oneself correctly through them, one must be careful not to mess up the parallelism.

In both cases the concern with parallelism seems more about style than getting a certain message across. I just don't see why it's okay to tamper with it in this particular case but not in the other. 

For what it's worth, my view here seems to agree with Keith Bradford's in post 42. He is proposing (as have others) a "not-nor" structure instead of a "neither-nor". That appears to me a reasonable compromise.

Is the semantic difference between "neither" and "not" in those structures and in this case really so important that it's worth the risk of upsetting some of the readers?


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## Andygc

I think the point to take away, EStjarn, is that this non-parallel structure is so firmly entrenched in English that those who use it see no reason to change and are completely mystified by anyone's objecting to it. It's such a normal part of my English usage that I can't think of any reason to phrase it differently.


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## kalamazoo

I agree with Andy.  The original structure sounds fine to me and a few other native speakers that I have checked with and also to many of the contributors here. I see no need for a 'compromise.'  It's just fine in my opinion.


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## bennymix

Hi Andy,
As you know, I agree with Boozer's, Loob's and your position and your explanations.  I think however to conclude the matter, one can put things more strongly than you do in post #51.   The first rule is 1) Make what follows 'neither' and 'nor' parallel.

This gives the following results, in Mahan's words:



> The original sentence should be either
> Guinea pigs neither are from Guinea, nor are they pigs
> or
> Guinea pigs are neither from Guinea, nor pigs.



RM1 seconded these.  Now the first is quite strange and the second is questionable, as Boozer and others have pointed out.

Indeed Mahan himself later showed some discomfort and proposed a third version.


> Frankly, had the sentence been entirely under my control, I would not have used the neither/nor construction, but if pressed for that I would have said "Guinea pigs are neither pigs, nor from Guinea" -- but I was stuck with the original sentence, and tinkered with it as it was presented.



But the third attempt breaks the order; the rhetorical effect diminishes.

So we come to rule 2:  If the parallelism creates ambiguity or has problems, insert what's needed to clarify.   Andy, you yourself said this in post #41.



> "nor are they" removes any possible confusion.



So I don't think we need any general defense of non parallelism as you make in post #51 (though it has some validity).   The rules together amount to "Parallelism with minor additions for clarity."
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Andygc said:


> I think the point to take away, EStjarn, is that this non-parallel structure is so firmly entrenched in English that those who use it see no reason to change and are completely mystified by anyone's objecting to it. It's such a normal part of my English usage that I can't think of any reason to phrase it differently.


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## EStjarn

kalamazoo said:


> The original structure sounds fine to me and a few other native speakers that I have checked with and also to many of the contributors here.



The comments above make sense. However, for the record I just want point out that 'many contributors' here does not necessarily mean 'a majority of contributors'. The ones who have expressed, or seem to express, concern about endorsing the structure are (not counting myself) Mahantongo, PaulQ (in his OED quote), velisarius, Keith Bradford, RM1(SS) and Myridon.


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## boozer

EStjarn said:


> The comments above make sense. However, for the record I just want point out that 'many contributors' here does not necessarily mean 'a majority of contributors'. The ones who have expressed, or seem to express, concern about endorsing the structure are (not counting myself) Mahantongo, PaulQ (in his OED quote), velisarius, Keith Bradford, RM1(SS) and Myridon.


What do you think about the original example, then?  (apart from suggesting an alternative)


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## EStjarn

I think it is clear in meaning and sounds fine when spoken. But once we get to non-informal _written_ language, where people have the opportunity to analyze and question our use of language, it appears controversial. Some want controversial, but a learner such as myself tries to stay out of it. It's been said before: why write things that make people focus on our use of language rather than what we try to express? If what we had here was a generally accepted exception to the notion that neither-nor structures require parallelism, I'd be the first one to change position. It's not what I see though, so I may as well stick to my original one.


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## boozer

I would use it in formal writing without batting an eyelid.


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## Thomas Tompion

boozer said:


> I would use it in formal writing without batting an eyelid.


So would I.


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## Andygc

A small point. PaulQ's OED quotation neither supported strict parallelism nor did he use it to contradict those who are happy with the topic sentence in this thread. rolleyes The quotation serves to show that "grammarians" attempted to impose rigidity on a language which has always had a happy degree of flexibility.


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## EStjarn

I notice from an advanced search on the English Only forum (presently containing more than 300,000 threads) that none of the posters in this discussion have, as far as I can tell, ever used this construction in their forum contributions. In fact, there are very few relevant hits period:

1. "are neither-nor are" 2 hits (AE, BE).

2. "were neither-nor were" 1 hit (AE).

3. "is neither-nor is" 13 hits (AE 8, AuE 1, BE 3, CE 1)

4. "was neither-nor was" 2 hits (both AE; in one of the threads another AE speaker disagrees with the structure)

Altogether 18 instances from 16 contributors (two of the posters accounted for two hits each).

(As a curiousity, I happened upon a thread in which this was suggested: _There is neither coffee nor are there apples on the table. _I realize it is not perfectly comparable with the topic sentence, yet it bears a certain similarity to it. I'm not sure why one would reprove one and endorse the other.)

<< Moderator's note: I have removed the links to forum searches because such links don't work. >>


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## Andygc

Actually, I used a different non-parallel construction in my post immediately before yours - didn't you notice the rolleyes?  There are so many ways of writing non-parallel "neither ... nor" sentences that trying to find examples in these forums is bound to be a fruitless exercise. For a start, how often do posters actually need any form of "neither ... nor" sentence in their posts?


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## EStjarn

Research helps us see things as they are, not just as people say they are.

I seemed to detect in the post reviving this thread a certain uncertainty as to whether there was or not an AE/BE divide here. It would seem my research has brought further support to the view that there is not.

As to how often posters need to use any form of 'neither-nor' structures, I suppose it's not all that often.  < ---  >


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## wandle

Nexsus said:


> Guinea pigs are neither from Guinea nor are they pigs.


An intriguing debate. This is what the latest _Fowler_ has to say:


> position of _neither_ and _nor_.
> 
> The position of _neither_ and _nor_ should be such that the grammatical  structures are correctly balanced, as in:
> _This suits neither one purpose  nor the other_; but not in: ☒ _This neither suits one purpose nor the other._


_Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage_ (2 ed.) Ed. by Robert Allen  OUP 2008 

By that standard, the topic sentence is not well structured, for two reasons:

(a) because one negative is outside its predicate and the other is inside the predicate (in other words 'nor' is placed ahead of the verb and is thus negating the verb, whereas 'neither' is placed after the verb and is not negating the verb);

(b) because the contrasted elements are not grammatically parallel (in other words, 'from Guinea' is a prepositional phrase whereas 'pigs' is a noun).

Keith Bradford made two simpler suggestions:


Keith Bradford said:


> if I wanted to convey the idea under discussion I'd probably say either: "Guinea pigs are neither pigs nor from Guinea" or "Guinea pigs are not from Guinea nor are they pigs."


The second suggestion avoids both problems (a) and (b), simply because it drops 'neither': meaning that the same grammatical balance is not needed. 
However, this loses the emphasis intended by the original. The first suggestion avoids problem (a) but not problem (b).

There is a way to maintain the emphasis of 'neither ... nor' while avoiding both problems: _'The Guinea pig is neither a pig nor a native of Guinea'_.

This uses the term 'the Guinea pig', meaning the species, and the noun 'native', meaning 'an indigenous species'. See WR Collins, *native*:

n 2 (_usually followed by 'of'_) a species originating in a particular place or area


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## Andygc

< No longer needed. > 

As for Robert Allen in Fowler, we appear to have found another prescriptivist. We have two sentences which many literate English speakers accept as normal. 
"The statement is neither self-evident, nor can it be easily proved"
"Guinea pigs are neither from Guinea nor are they pigs."
Is the meaning of these sentences clear?
Do they admit of any confusion?
Have they fulfilled the primary purpose of language?
Answers - yes, no, yes.
Their only failure is to satisfy prescriptivist grammarians who require parallel constructions even though non-parallel constructions are a long-standing normal English form.


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## wandle

It seems to me a mistake to categorise writers as 'descriptivist' or 'prescriptivist'. That tends to drive people into opposed camps.
Description and prescription are simply different activities which are appropriate in different circumstances.

The job of linguistic research is to describe language, which includes identifying grammatical rules. 
It is a mistake for a researcher to alter his findings if they do not fit his idea of grammatical rules.

The job of language teaching is to teach the language as it exists at the time, which includes laying down grammatical rules.
It is a mistake for a teacher to pretend that the learner does not need to follow rules.


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## kalamazoo

I would also use the 'guinea pig' sentence in formal writing with no hesitation. I do not consider it the least bit controversial. (The coffee and apples sentence is different and not comparable.)


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## Andygc

But what is ths purpose of this?





> position of neither and nor.
> 
> The position of neither and nor should be such that the grammatical structures are correctly balanced, as in:
> This suits neither one purpose nor the other; but not in: This neither suits one purpose nor the other.


Why "should"? Actually, in that simple sentence, I agree with his preference. We don't know what he might say about the more complex examples in this thread, but on what basis can either of the sentences in my last post be described as "wrong" - given that, in my view, they are normal English and communicate meaning effectively.


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## wandle

Andygc said:


> But what is ths purpose of this?
> ...Why "should"?


That quotation expresses a rule. The job of a usage guide, like that of a teacher, involves presenting rules.


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## kalamazoo

The rules come from the language, not the other way around.  I have no idea what 'rule' applies here, but I am a literate native English speaker, and the original guinea pig sentence is perfectly correct in my opinion and can be used in formal written language with no hesitation.


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## wandle

kalamazoo said:


> The rules come from the language, not the other way around.


Language involves rules very fundamentally.
It seems reasonable to suppose that spoken language evolved from earlier symbolic communication, such as gesture and inarticulate vocalisation.
If so, it would seem that rules were evolved before words, at any rate.


> the original guinea pig sentence is perfectly correct in my opinion and can be used in formal written language with no hesitation.


All that means is that your idea of the rules is different from Fowler's and mine, not that one of us follows rules and the other does not.


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## kalamazoo

Of course language involves underlying 'rules' but the rules in grammar books (for any language) are deduced from usage and not the other way around and don't always cover all exceptions.  The Guinea pig sentence is clever and has a literary quality.  Fowler's rules are indeed generally applicable.


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## Thomas Tompion

I agree, Kalamazoo, and one of the ways in which it's clever is that it keeps the order - Guinea pig.

Reverse the order and it's less felicitous: _Guinea pigs are neither pigs, nor are they from Guinea_.


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## wandle

kalamazoo said:


> The Guinea pig sentence is clever and has a literary quality.


If I may, I would say it tries to be clever and has a journalistic quality.

Linguistic research attempts to identify the rules of a language at a given period. Grammar books and teachers attempt to convey those rules to learners. Neither endeavour succeeds perfectly. 

At the same time, we all have a feeling about what is good or valid usage, which represents, I believe, our own innate and experienced sense of fundamental rules, a sense deeper than and prior to any linguistic research.


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## Cagey

This thread is closed. 

It is clearly impossible to come to an agreement on whether or not the title sentence is acceptable.  Competent speakers  of English have opposing views.  They have made good arguments on both sides, and the discussion is well worth reading. 

Someone who is looking for advice on the use of _neither ... nor_ should use the search box at the top of the page to find previous threads on neither nor.

A few threads that may interest you: 

These discuss structures that present problems similar to those discussed in this thread: 
​Neither John sleeps on the couch, nor should you..
neither my place setting was ready nor my coffee made​ 
This explains how neither/nor may be used join two independent clauses:
​The kids went to the circus (Neither....nor)​ 
Thank you, everyone, for your contributions to an informative discussion.  

Cagey, 
Moderator.


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