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Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2009Neither nor construction
Hi All Do ‘neither’ ‘nor’ constructions take only two separate elements, for example: ‘Neither snow nor ice will prevent our ascent tomorrow’? Would a series of elements be grammatically wrong, say: ‘Neither, wind, hail, snow nor ice will prevent our ascent tomorrow’? I thought this second construction looked fine, but I’ve been told it looks odd! Thanks > Hi All > [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > ‘Neither, wind, hail, snow nor ice will prevent our ascent tomorrow’? Not ungrammatical, but: "The postman's creed. Neither rain nor snow, nor sleet nor dark of night shall stay these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds ..." (I doubt the presence of the single comma is correct, but this is from the blurb of the first citation in Google "postman's creed".) It seems to me that a somewhat similar situation was discussed last month. I can recall posting a series of "nors" in a sentence, but with a note that the use of the word before each item in a list makes the items emphatic, which emphasis is enhanced even more by the counting out with fingers or making other gestures. > I thought this second construction looked fine, but I’ve been told it > looks odd! It doesn't look _odd_ to me, but the itemizing of the elements seems to call for the excited emphasis I mentioned. What feeling do you intend to have the listener or reader come away with? Even more emphatic: Nothing will stop us from our ascent tomorrow! Not wind!* Not hail! Not snow! Not ice! Nothing! *If the exclamation point makes the feeling come off as too passionate and frenzied, then the period could be used.  SignaturePat Durkin durkinpa at msn.com Wisconsin > > Hi All > [quoted text clipped - 39 lines] > durkinpa at msn.com > Wisconsin Thanks Pat >>> Hi All >>> Do ‘neither’ ‘nor’ constructions take only two separate elements, for [quoted text clipped - 28 lines] >> *If the exclamation point makes the feeling come off as too passionate >> and frenzied, then the period could be used. Just to complicate matters, there's a somewhat archaic use of "nor ... nor", usually interpreted as affectedly poetic: "Ah! this / Nor tongue nor pen can show". <http://books.google.com/books?id=MOJXXWpBBL0C&pg=PA129&lpg=PA129&dq=%22Nor+death +nor%22&source=web&ots=fwxvjsufS9&sig=tWigdiIGcVpgmJjq9kbjFCk9ncM&hl=en&sa=X&oi= book_result&resnum=1&ct=result> (No endorsement of any religious belief intended here - just that hymnals provide good examples of archaic / poetic English forms.) SignatureLew >> Hi All >> [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] >(I doubt the presence of the single comma is correct, but this is from >the blurb of the first citation in Google "postman's creed".) I don't know who first described this as "the postman's creed", but it is probably someone fairly recent. The rest is engraved on the old Post Office Building, alias the Farley Building, on 8th Ave. in New York City, built in 1912 and opened in 1914, and is a quotation from Herodotus, hence written long before there were such things as postmen. The translation is by Prof. George H. Palmer of Harvard, and was made specially for this inscription, so it doesn't appear in exactly that form in any printed edition. It is not, as is often said, "the official motto of the US Postal Service", which doesn't have a motto. The building has recently been sold, but, being a national historic landmark, the inscription will be retained. Getting back to the point, the inscription contains no commas, according to the several places on the USPS website where it is quoted. SignatureDon Aitken Mail to the From: address is not read. To email me, substitute "clara.co.uk" for "freeuk.com" [...] >> Not ungrammatical, but: >> [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > according to the several places on the USPS website where it is > quoted. It's interesting to think of postmen's early adoption of such a rigorous public-service ethic. I've read somewhere that there was even at least one fatality in 19-C England when a postman died of exposure trying to take the mailbag onward on foot after snow had stopped the coach. The ancient Greek cities did, of course, have professional messengers (see the Marathon story, poised between history and legend), while the Assyrians and Persians had, as one would expect, more organized systems. Not Rowland Hill stuff, but still impressive. SignatureMike. > [...] > >> Not ungrammatical, but: [quoted text clipped - 36 lines] > > - Show quoted text - Hi I think the postman you’re referring to was Robert Cunningham, who, I think, was overwhelmed in a storm whilst he was delivering his last letter (the last letter bit may not be accurate) in Ballentrae, Ayshire, Scotland about 1907 to 1909ish - it was round about the time of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Nimrod expedition – I remember reading it an article in a British newspaper (on microfilm) when browsing for Shackleton stories. [...] >> It's interesting to think of postmen's early adoption of such a >> rigorous public-service ethic. I've read somewhere that there was >> even at least one fatality in 19-C England when a postman died of >> exposure trying to take the mailbag onward on foot after snow had >> stopped the coach. [...] > Hi > I think the postman you’re referring to was Robert Cunningham, who, I [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > it an article in a British newspaper (on microfilm) when browsing for > Shackleton stories. Thanks for that. And it ill behoves one of Scottish extraction to have said it happened in England! But I do wonder if there were other cases. OB a.u.e., though OT: Clearly Robert Cunninghams are a dogged breed, not to be trifled with. SignatureMike. >> Hi All >> [quoted text clipped - 26 lines] >> > It doesn't look _odd_ to me, I imagine it only looks odd to those people who still insist that "either" and "neither" can only be used with two items. SignatureRob Bannister |
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