grammar - "Neither he had" vs "he neither had"


Example:



Despite the fact he was nearing his thirties and got stressed a lot at work, he still had a full head of hair. No thinning at all. [Neither/he] had wrinkles, and his face was still long and thin—not the least sign of weight gain.



Should it be neither he or he neither? If both are grammatically incorrect, what's the right option?



Answer



Neither is a conjunction, implying that there are two or more negative statements in play. I would reword your example as



Despite the fact he was nearing his thirties and got stressed a lot at work, he still had a full head of hair. No thinning at all. Nor did he have wrinkles, and his face was still long and thin—not the least sign of weight gain.



[Edit]


But even that is awkward. Per the comments below, I would suggest rewriting the whole paragraph:



Despite the fact he was nearing his thirties and got stressed a lot at work, he still had a full head of hair; no thinning at all. He had no wrinkles, and his face was still long and thin -- not the least sign of weight gain.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

commas - Does this sentence have too many subjunctives?

verbs - "Baby is creeping" vs. "baby is crawling" in AmE

time - English notation for hour, minutes and seconds

etymology - Origin of "s--t eating grin"

grammatical number - Use of lone apostrophe for plural?

etymology - Where does the phrase "doctored" originate?

single word requests - What do you call hypothetical inhabitants living on the Moon?