English Grammar: Correlative Conjunctions (NEITHER & NOR, EITHER & OR, BOTH & AND...)

Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo.

Ex my...

"Neither you nor your hairy-ass friend can come to my party!"

E! That's so rude.

Hi. James from engVid.

Today's lesson is going to be on correlative conjunctions, or let's say conjunctive pairs

to make it simple.

Mr. E made a statement where he said two things using two words to bring two statements together,

two related ideas and brought them together.

In this case: "you" and "your hairy-ass friend".

I want to go to the board and I want to explain the correlative conjunctions to you, because

I know conjunctions you've heard of, but this will be a little twist that can add to your

English to make it more advanced. Are you ready?

Let's go to the board.

All right, so E talked about correlative conjunctions, and what I want to do is just go over conjunctions

basically to you. Okay?

So, conjunctions like: "for", "so", "because", "and", and "or" are easy.

You know, they're everyday words.

You say them regularly.

"My friend and I", "You", or "Him", or "Her". Right?

And we use these to join words, clauses, and phrases together. Right?

"The people I saw and my best friends were happy."

Okay?

So, a correlative conjunction is the same kind of thing as, like, your joining statements,

but they're of... Sorry.

"Of", not "or".

Of related information.

And when they come together...

When I say pairs, it's like imagine a boy and a girl together and they're a happy couple,

they work together.

Okay?

So, "either", "or" is one of the first examples.

You've seen "either". Right?

Or you've seen "or", but what I want to talk about is "either", "or".

In "either", "or" it gives you a choice.

"Either you pay me the money now or I break your legs."

You have a choice; whether you like that choice or not, it's a choice.

The second one is also...

Is: "not only", "but also".

It's about surprise.

In the first case we're saying: "Not only was she happy"-there was a surprise-

"but she also got married", there's even more surprise.

So, in this correlative pair we talk about the idea of surprise.

You put this plus this, there's a surprise, plus more surprise.

In our third case we talk about negation.

That's what I was talking about, Mr. E here said: "Not you, nor your friend".

A lot of students have a problem with "neither", "nor" or "neither", "nor".

By the way, they're the same thing.

You'll hear people say: "Neither this" or "nor".

My idea on that or my take on that is this: A lot of educated people will say: "Neither",

and it's more British.

And Americans tend to say: "Neither" more.

Is there really a grammatical difference?

Not at all, but just keep that in mind that if you hear someone say: "Neither" they probably

have gone to university, a little bit more educated, and "neither" is just more commonplace.

It's not better, it's not worse, it's just a preference in style. Okay?

But when you say "neither"...

"Neither", "nor", it means not this and not that.

It's not a choice.

People confuse "either", "or" because you have a choice.

This means: This is not true and that's not true, so both are not true anymore.

Cool? Keep that in mind.

It makes everything negative.

And finally: "both", "and" is inclusive or including.

You know: "Both my brother and my father love baseball."

So I'm taking two, right?

"Both", my brother, I am saying there are two parts, and the secondary part is included

with the first part, so it's an including. Cool?

Now, we've got the basic lesson down.

We're going to go to the board, of course you know I'm going to give you a bit of a quiz.

I hope you understand.

I'll go over it quickly for you once again just in case.

"Either", "or" is choice; "not only", "but also" is surprise and it's two surprises,

the first case is a surprise, the second one is even more of a surprise; "neither", "nor"

is negation, meaning no, x, nothing, no; and "both", "and" is included, so you're including

this with that, both she and he were happy. Right? Cool?

All right, so once again we're going to do our magic board.

Got to do a little bit of a quiz, and I'll give you a little bit extra on conjunctions

in just a second.

[Snaps]

Okay, so you'll remember we were talking about, you know, correlative conjunctions, and what

I want you to do just before I got to the quiz, because I said we were doing a quiz

-which is true-I want to show you how they work in sentences

because I explained it to you, but

I think one picture is worth a thousand words, so we're going to do, well, four pictures.

Okay?

So, here are some conjunction examples.

Four markers to make it clear, okay?

So: "They told me to either buy the shoes or put them back."

So in this case you can see the choice, you can buy or put them back, but you have to

do one or the other.

Okay? And that's what the "either" is indicating here.

"Either buy this one or put them back."

That is your choice.

Okay?

Let's do the next one: "Not only did it smell", okay just to let you know, when you say something

smells in English, it's not usually positive.

We talk about a scent, someone has a pleasant scent, not a pleasant smell.

Okay?

So: "Not only did it smell", that's my first part, it's like: "It smelled. I didn't expect it to smell".

"...but it also tasted funny".

So, I'd give you an example of a hamburger.

I expect a hamburger to taste a certain way, but if the hamburger had a smell I'd be surprised.

It shouldn't smell like fish, but then it tasted funny.

It tasted like, I don't know, licorice.

Not only was I surprised the first time.

Remember I told you?

The second one indicates even a greater surprise.

Something looked a certain way, but tasted or felt a different way.

Okay?

So here we're looking at surprise and I'm showing you how these show surprise and greater surprise.

Let's look at number three, okay?

"The dog neither ate nor slept at night."

So, it neither ate...

Okay? So it didn't eat.

But I'm not even just saying it didn't eat, I'm also going to say it didn't sleep.

So, instead of...

And let's go back to number one where you have a choice of buying it or putting away.

In this case you don't get to eat and you don't get to sleep, neither thing is true.

You don't get to do either one, and that's why it's a negation.

Okay?

Both are taken away from you.

Here you're offered a choice, here you show surprise, but in this one you get nothing;

you don't get this and you don't get that.

Now, finally we have: "Mr. E was both funny and modest about his adventures."

Well, we're saying the two are together.

In this case he was funny and...

If I'm going to go back to, don't tell anybody, but we'll go back to a simple conjunction

"and" because you know "and" means both things are truth.

This is just saying here the inclusion is both, meaning two things.

So it's telling you right at the beginning there are two things that are true; one is

being funny, the other is being modest, and we're including them together to make it a

stronger statement.

So instead of just saying: "He was funny and this", we're saying:

"He was both funny and modest", stronger statement and it's inclusive or including.

Do you like that?

Cool.

Now we've gone through all four sentences, I'm going to test your knowledge because you

have examples of it, you know what it means - let's see how well you do on the quiz.

Let's start with number one.

"Not only"... Oops, sorry.

"Not only was it"...

Sorry.

"Not only was it of great quality but it was also cheap."

Would it be A, B, C, or D?

Okay.

Before I put it on the board, let's go to number two.

"Both the man and his dog were stupid."

Sorry.

I don't know where that came from, but I liked it so I wrote it down.

"Both the man and his dog were stupid."

Okay?

So I want...

Once again I'm going to step back, I want you to take a look at your choices and figure out which...

Where it goes. Okay?

Okay, number three: "Neither the woman nor the man were happy with the answer."

Once again, which one do you think would be the correct one?

Inclusion, choice, negation, or surprise?

And finally, we have this one: "Either you watch the program or we turn off the television."

Okay, so you've had time to think about it.

Let's go to the answers and see which one it would be.

Now, number one was: "Not only was it of great quality but it was also cheap."

That sounds like a surprise, right?

"Not only was it of great quality but it was also cheap", so that one goes here.

D1 is here.

Surprise, I was surprised at the quality and the cost.

Right?

Now let's look at...

Take a look at number two: "Both the man and his dog were stupid."

I know it's a bad sentence, but I just kind of like it.

Okay.

Both.

Well, it seems I'm including the man and his dog together, right?

That would be inclusion. Right?

So, inclusion, so we're going to go here with number 2.

Inclusion or included.

How about this one: "Neither the woman nor the man were happy with the answer"?

So not this one and not that one, I think that would be...

What do you think that would be?

Yeah, I made that one easy, here we go, 3, negation. Right?

Both of them were not happy.

And finally, we know the answer is choice, let's go down to number four:

"Either you watch the program or we turn off the television."

All right?

Number 4.

And there we have our answers.

How did you do?

Did you get all four correct?

If not, we should go back...

Go back to the beginning, watch the explanation, and then look at the example sentences

I have over here-right?-to make sure you understand properly.

Now, time for me to get going.

I've got a bit of pairing to do myself.

Do you know what I mean? [Clicks tongue].

Okay, anyway, before I go I just want to say: Thank you very much for watching the video.

Please go to engVid, because if you know, when you go to engVid you'll notice that I

actually did another video on comma girl and I think it was...

Comma girl and conjunction boy, so that's, you know, in greater detail on that.

Anyway, and we have...

Also have other information from other teachers doing the same thing.

But I want to say thank you once again, and I'm going to say go to www.engvid.com,

where you can see my video and other ones, and don't forget to subscribe;

push that button, press that screen, whatever you've got to do.

All right?

Have a good one.