A note for English learners (3): Either, Neither, Any
By John Welford
@indexer (4852)
Leicester, England
November 3, 2018 3:14am CST
Either (and 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” but “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” sounds 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!
(As ever, I am referring in this piece to British English – conventions could be different in other parts of the English-speaking world)
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4 responses
@ilocosboy (45155)
• Philippines
3 Nov 18
Oh thank you here. Its very helpful for me because I'm not really good in constructing English phrases. This is good. I propose you should explain more in English grammar.
3 people like this
@owlwings (43897)
• Cambridge, England
3 Nov 18
I was surprised to see at least one site listing 'either/neither' as a conjunction! It seems to me that 'either' and 'neither' are pronouns and that 'or' is a conjunction, though perhaps that's an academic point which doesn't need to be taken any further.
Your point about number is relevant and causes a lot of confusion to native English speakers, of course, as well as to foreign learners.
If you think of 'either' and 'neither' as pronouns (that is, standing in place of a person or thing as the subject or object of a verb, it should be easier to see that 'either' (and 'neither') refers to ONE thing of two and the verb should therefore be singular if it is the subject, even if both of the nouns are conjoined by 'or'.
Example: "Either [one of] A or B is correct" (where 'one of' is the implied sense)
The same goes for 'any' and 'none' (which is a contraction of 'not one', so it should be obvious, but often isn't!)
"None of them are right" is so common that, to many people, it sounds acceptable until you remember that it should be identical to saying "Not one of them is right".
Perhaps the confusion arises from the natural feeling that 'Both' and 'Neither' and 'All' and 'None' are exact complements, whereas, in fact, 'Both' and 'All' are plural pronouns and 'Neither' and 'Not' are singular.
How much more logical it would be if we all spoke West Country, in which the verb 'to be' is declined:
"I be, thu bist, he be, we be, you be, they be".
Oh yes. I know that some 'grammarians' will tell you that it's "bad grammar" but it's the way that people speak in certain parts of England so, (as they say it in Bristol, where 'th' becomes 'd') "Dur de bist"!
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@owlwings (43897)
• Cambridge, England
3 Nov 18
@NormanDarlo Yes, you're right. I forgot to count the uncountables! 
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@NormanDarlo (1071)
• Ireland
3 Nov 18
@owlwings or just lose the present tense of 'to be' entirely, as in Hebrew and Arabic! @indexer this is a great series, which I hope you will continue with. May I suggest that you edit each of the series to provide links to the other posts in it?
I'm having a cloudy morning thought that 'any' also correlates to 'some', in that the negative of 'I have some' is 'I don't have any'. I'm not sure how this fits in with the above. Oh, and @owlwings, 'all' can be singular if it is referring to an uncountable noun: 'All of the flour is in the bowl'.
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@indexer (4852)
• Leicester, England
3 Nov 18
You may be right - Brits seem to be divided on this, with some regions preferring one or the other.
@Michellekidwell (29953)
• Sonora, California
3 Nov 18
I am American and the uses of either, neither and any are pretty much the same!
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