Question

Fill in the blanks from the options given below:

Susie _________ phoned ________ wrote a letter after she left home.

• A. either, nor
• B. neither, nor
• C. neither, or
• D. or, either

Answer 1

The correct option is B neither, nor

'Either...or' is a correlative conjunction that pairs two sentences, it indicates a comparison between two ideas. 'Neither...nor' is a negative conjunction that links two alternate ideas. The given sentence utilizes 'neither...nor' as it links two actions "neither phoned" and "nor wrote". Hence option B is correct. The conjunction 'nor' is non-existent without the conjunction 'neither', it is dependent on 'neither', although the latter is independent and is used without the former in many types of sentences. Hence 'either' and 'nor' cannot be paired up as a correlative conjunction, and option A is incorrect. Similarly, 'neither' and 'or' cannot be paired up, as the former is negative and the latter is positive, hence option C is incorrect. 'Neither' is paired with only 'nor', and 'either' with 'or'. Option D is incorrect because 'or' is dependent on 'either', 'either...or' is used in this order only, and not in the order in option D, hence D is incorrect.