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quick grammar check

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bednobs | 15:07 Thu 01st Dec 2011 | ChatterBank
19 Answers
is it "neither of the buildings was designed as gp surgeries"
or neither of the buildings were designed as gp surgeries"?
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"neither building was designed as a gp surgery"
15:15 Thu 01st Dec 2011
I'd say the second one....
I'd go with 'were'
I would use "were"
I'd go with 'Neither building was designed to operate as gp surgeries'
I'd opt for neither of the buildings was
''were originally'' I'd go for.
"Were" sounds righter.
I would say neither WAS. Similarly i would say none IS rather than none ARE
Question Author
i know it sounds right, but word is telling me otherwise!
Neither was
Either was
Both were

Both is plural; either/neither is singular
was, as it is singular, same as none was.
was...it applies to neither and not buildings...
"neither building was designed as a gp surgery"
I'd go with alba & joe. I'm no expert but the use of the words buildings and surgeries at the very least confuses the issue for me, and makes it all sound plural despite the "neither" start to the sentence.

"Neither A nor B", I can cope with, "Neither As", isn't 'nice'.
Question Author
thanks all, I have chosen jinothan-joes form or words
it's "neither one", so "was" is better. (This isn't universally observed, though.)

And just to make it better, "Neither was designed as a GP surgery" (or "designed to include GP surgeries" if there's more than one surgery).
neither=neither one, so the correct answer is "was". Very common mistake, as you can see from above.
If you translate the problem into other languages, it gets easier, since the word "neither " always appears as a singular. It is singular in English, so requires a singular verb.
Try "Neither he nor she . . ." and you will see that the verb applies to one not both . " Neither he not she has any idea . . Neither he nor she wants to go to the party . . ."
The problem occurs when you have the equivalent of "Neither they..."

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