Neither one of us

[BaRBiTcH]

What's a more specific way of saying "Neither one of us"? If I want to say, "Neither him nor I"? I have heard people say "Neither him nor me", "Neither him or me", "Neither he nor me"... and on and on...

If I want to say that "we are not worried about that" but want to refer, specifically, to "him", should I say "That's something that concerns neither him nor I", or "Thats not something that concerns neither him nor I"?, since I feel like I'm using a double negative in this last one...

[Delmobile]

"Neither him nor I" couldn't be right because "him" is objective case and "I" is subjective.

So, you'd say "Neither he nor I is worried" or "That's something that concerns neither me nor him."

When in doubt, just take out the "neithers" -- He is worried. I am worried. That doesn't concern me. That doesn't concern him.

[native speaker, not a teacher]

[Teia]

Originally Posted by Delmobile

"Neither him nor I" couldn't be right because "him" is objective case and "I" is subjective.

So, you'd say "Neither he nor I is worried" or "That's something that concerns neither me nor him."

When in doubt, just take out the "neithers" -- He is worried. I am worried. That doesn't concern me. That doesn't concern him.

[native speaker, not a teacher]

Hi Delmobile
I`d like to ask you a question . In your sentence "Neither he nor I is worried" shouldn`t we apply the proximity rule when we talk about the subject-verb agreement? Isn`t it more correct to say :
Neither he nor I am worried. [?]

Thank you

[Delmobile]

Whoops, you're right. It should be "Neither he nor I am worried."

Although that is certainly correct I have to admit it sounds unnatural to my ear, and in real life, without thinking about it first, I would probably say "Neither he nor I are..." which is really wrong. <blush>

[native speaker, good thing I'm not a teacher, huh?]

[Teia]

Originally Posted by Delmobile

Whoops, you're right. It should be "Neither he nor I am worried."

Although that is certainly correct I have to admit it sounds unnatural to my ear, and in real life, without thinking about it first, I would probably say "Neither he nor I are..." which is really wrong. <blush>

[native speaker, good thing I'm not a teacher, huh?]

Thank you.

I was not so sure, either. I sometimes make mistakes when I have to think about Romanian grammar rules but, because I have been teaching English for years , I have always concentrated on English grammar rules which I know by heart, much better than the Romanian ones. I wanted to be sure if my way of thinking is correct because such types of sentences based especially on subject-verb agreement sound unnatural to me , as well.

[Delmobile]

I thought about this some more after I posted. I think the reason it sounds wrong is because, especially in the negative, you are talking about a group of two people: "neither John nor I am going to go"---so you have two people not going. Even in the positive ("Either my husband or I am going to pick up the kids after practice") you are still talking about two people, the designated picker-uppers.

Maybe this is one of those rules that will be changed in 100 years, when it will also be safe to say "Everybody can pick up their uniforms after the game." :)

[BaRBiTcH]

Hey, thank you guys! I asked around, and I got a lot of different answers to this one, but the one that came up the most was "That's something that concerns neither him nor me", because if you break it down: [This concerns him] and [This concerns me] are both correct, so you would just stick the "neither" to imply that neither one of us is concerned about it...

But I don't know. I've only been speaking English for about 8 years, so I'm learning.

Great forum, by the way!