Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
Are there any truly unsympathetic MALE characters in this strip?
pwhodges:
"Both" is plural; "neither" is not. But I'll leave that there - the main reason the original sentence felt wrong was the mismatch of "he and her", which was the essential correction.
tomart:
--- Quote from: O8h7w on 14 Jun 2011, 03:33 ---Exactly my point, although I have to say Dale is often more mature than most of the cast. But this thing, flirting with Marigold, is something neither he nor her have a clue about how to handle with maturity.
--- End quote ---
It's your first sentence that I quibble with; more mature?
Devoted to a MMORPG
Wearing glowing glasses that impair his sight
Calling a grown woman "a lil baby"
Daaaaaaaaang!
Method of Madness:
--- Quote from: pwhodges on 14 Jun 2011, 22:38 ---"Both" is plural; "neither" is not. But I'll leave that there - the main reason the original sentence felt wrong was the mismatch of "he and her", which was the essential correction.
--- End quote ---
Yeah, the he and her correction was necessary. But technically, "neither" should not be singular or plural. But since there's not a third option, it makes more sense to treat "neither" as plural, and "plural" in the grammar sense as meaning "not one" (rather than more than one), since singular explicitly means "one".
pwhodges:
We're getting mixed up over which word is the subject in the specific case at hand; the subject is one of "he" and "she". The surrounding construct: neither...nor... (like either...or...), is merely a means of presenting alternative subjects. The verb must then agree with each subject individually (i.e. in our case be singular). In a case where the alternative subjects themselves disagree in number (either he or they), grammarians disagree - some say the verb must then be plural, and some that it should take the number of the nearest subject (I'd say the second, but normally put the plural subjects after the singular ones anyway).
There's a good account of this (because it mostly agrees with me!) here.
Thiefree:
I don't believe that any of the male characters are inherently unsympathetic. If they seem that way now, it's probably just because we don't have enough information. Have you ever disliked somebody at first, then grew to like them as you got to know them better? There are reasons to empathise with every well-rounded character. It's a testament to Jeph's writing that none of us can agree on a wholly unlikeable one.
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