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:
We are tasked with identifying the grammatical mistake in a sentence that uses the correlative conjunction "neither... nor".


Step 2: Detailed Explanation:
According to English grammar rules, when subjects are joined by "either... or" or "neither... nor", the verb must agree in number with the subject closest to it. This principle is called the "rule of proximity."
In this sentence, the two subjects are:
1. "the manager" (Singular)
2. "the employees" (Plural)
Since "the employees" is the subject immediately preceding the verb, and it is plural, the verb must also be plural.
Thus, the singular verb "was" is incorrect and should be replaced with the plural verb "were".
The corrected sentence reads: "Neither the manager nor the employees were aware of the new policy."
The grammatical error is located in the segment "was aware".


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