Question

Identify the segment of the sentence that contains a grammatical error: "Neither the manager nor the employees was aware of the new policy."

• A. Neither the manager
• B. nor the employees
• C. was aware
• D. of the new policy

Hint:

For "neither... nor" sentences, ignore the first subject. Just look at the subject immediately before the verb to decide whether to use singular or plural.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is C

Step 1: Understanding the Question:
The question requires us to spot the grammatical error in a sentence featuring the correlative conjunction "neither... nor".


Step 2: Detailed Explanation:
In English grammar, when two subjects are connected by the correlative conjunctions "either... or" or "neither... nor", the verb must agree with the subject that is physically closer to it. This is known as the "rule of proximity."
In the given sentence, the two subjects are:
1. "the manager" (Singular)
2. "the employees" (Plural)
The subject closer to the verb is "the employees", which is a plural noun.
Therefore, the plural verb "were" should be used instead of the singular verb "was".
The correct sentence should be: "Neither the manager nor the employees were aware of the new policy."
The error lies in the segment "was aware".


Step 3: Final Answer:
The correct choice is (C).