Directions: Select the most appropriate option to substitute the underlined segment in the given sentence. If there is no need to substitute it, select No improvement.

The Dean said, "You can have neither jam nor butter, but not both."

Question

Question

This question was previously asked in

SSC CHSL Previous Paper 107 (Held On: 20 Oct 2020 Shift 3)

Attempt Online

Answer 1

The correct answer is 'either jam or butter'.

In the underlined segment, the use of the correlative conjunction "neither/nor" is incorrect.
'Neither/nor' is used in a sentence in the negative sense when you want to say that two or more things are not true.
If we use 'neither', then make sure the sentence does not have any other negatives preceding it. If we prefer to use a negative, then we have to use 'either'.
The correlative conjunction "either/or" should be used in place of "neither/nor".
'Either/or' is used in a sentence in the affirmative sense when referring to a choice between two possibilities.
'Either' is always paired with 'or' and 'neither' is always paired with 'nor'.
In the given sentence, the Dean is giving the choice that the student can have only one of the two things - jam and butter, but not both jam and butter

Correct Sentence: The Dean said, "You can have either jam or butter, but not both."