Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[Jerry Chen]

Hello,

As the sentence says, "Neither Sammy nor Ken didn't pay attention to the lecture because they were daydreaming."

So, which of the following is correct?

1. Sammy and Ken didn't pay pay attention to the lecture because they were daydreaming.
2. Sammy or Ken didn't pay attention to the lecture because they were daydreaming.

Thanks for responding to this question.

[educe22]

Without going into a long grammatical discourse, number 1 is correct. Both were not paying attention.
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Educe22

[Lorikeet]

I think the initial sentence should be "Neither Sammy nor Ken paid attention to the lecture because they were daydreaming." (Neither and nor are already negative, and if you use them, the verb isn't negative.)