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Consider this sentence: "Alex does not know the locations of US cities nor Toronto."

Two questions: A) Is it interpreted this in two ways?:

1) Alex does not know the locations of US cities, and he does not know Toronto. 2) Alex does not know the locations of US cities, and he does not know the location of Toronto.

How can we modify it to mention first?

B) The word "locations" cannot be attributed to "Toronto" since "locations" is plural but "Toronto" is singular. Right?

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NOR

Alex does not know the locations of US cities nor Toronto.

STANDARD FORM: Alex neither knows the locations of US cities nor does he know Toronto.

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  • +1 because you are correct, but I'm not sure your standard form is totally right. "Alex knows neither the locations of US cities nor the location of Toronto." sounds better to me. I don't think I've ever seen "neither" placed before a verb like as you have done.
    – Readin
    Commented Jan 7, 2018 at 1:44
  • The original sentence is not the best. You have rewritten it, which is fine. However, for the neither/nor before the verb: I neither speak Russian nor do I write it. [kind of a silly sentence but it shows my point. :)]
    – Lambie
    Commented Jan 7, 2018 at 15:29
  • Your new example does sound better to me. I'm still not sure why your original example bothers me.
    – Readin
    Commented Jan 7, 2018 at 18:32
  • @Readin It bothers you because the original sentence I edited is not that great.
    – Lambie
    Commented Jan 7, 2018 at 18:46
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    @Readin Because it lacks parallel construction: Alex neither knows the locations of US cities nor does he know Toronto|| compared to|| Alex neither knows the locations of US cities nor does he know the location of Toronto. Parallelism makes for good style.
    – Lambie
    Commented Jan 7, 2018 at 22:30

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