Which answer is right?

[wedo]

All people, ______ they are old or young, rich or poor, have been trying their best to help those in need since the disaster. A. even if B. whether C. no matter D. however

Which answer is right?

 

[5jj]

Which answer is right?

Welcome to the forum, wedo. :hi:

We like members to try first. Which do you think is the correct answer?

 

[wedo]

B is the correct answer given by the examiner,but C also sounds ok to me

 

[Rover_KE]

'All people, no matter they are old or young...' is ungrammatical.

 

[CarloSsS]

B is the correct answer given by the examiner,but C also sounds ok to me

NOT A TEACHER

C is not a correct answer. For C to work, there would have to be "whether" after "no matter":
All people, no matter whether they are old or young, rich or poor...

 

[MikeNewYork]

'All people, no matter they are old or young...' is ungrammatical.

I agree, but I have (rarely) run across the construction "no matter they be...".

 

[bhaisahab]

I agree, but I have (rarely) run across the construction "no matter they be...".

"no matter they be" would be acceptable in my opinion.

 

[5jj]

"no matter they be" would be acceptable in my opinion.

It sounds unnatural to me.

 

[MikeNewYork]

It sounds unnatural to me.

I believe it is a use of the subjunctive.

 

[emsr2d2]

For the subjunctive in that case, I would expect to see "All people, be they young or old ..." or "All people, whether they be young or old". It sounds unnatural to me with the addition of "no matter".

 

[MikeNewYork]

For the subjunctive in that case, I would expect to see "All people, be they young or old ..." or "All people, whether they be young or old". It sounds unnatural to me with the addition of "no matter".

That one works too. Google returns 12,500,000 hits for ""no matter they be".

 

[5jj]

That one works too. Google returns 12,500,000 hits for ""no matter they be".

And the rather more reliable COCA has one solitary citation.

Google gives me 726,000,000 citations for "I ain't got no friends", but that is not going to make me tell members it's acceptable in standard English.

 

[MikeNewYork]

And the rather more reliable COCA has one solitary citation.

Google gives me 726,000000 citations for "I ain't got no friends", but that is not going to make me tell members it's acceptable in standard English.

When I Google "I ain't got no friends" (with the quotation marks), I get 674,000 hits, mostly due to Tupac's song lyrics.

 

[5jj]

When I Google "I ain't got no friends" (with the quotation marks), I get 674,000 hits, mostly due to Tupac's song lyrics.

Whatever the reason, Google is no evidence as to whether something is acceptable in standard English.

 

[MikeNewYork]

Whatever the reason, Google is no evidence as to whether something is acceptable in standard English.

Well, it certainly can be evidence of what is common. This may be another BrE/AmE diifference.

 

[UM Chakma]

Your answers really made me quite confused as to which one should be used. I personally have seen the both used. As Mike said this may be another difference between AmE and BrE. Interesting!

 

[wedo]

Ok,I checked grammar book,"no matter' has to go with "what ,who, when, where, which, how.."to make it work. What I want to know is even with the correct answer,does the sentence "All people, whether they are old or young, rich or poor, have been trying their best to help those in need since the disaster. "sound perfectly ok or still a little bit weird?What's the best way to write this sentence?

 

[5jj]

COCA = Corpus of Contemporary American English.

 

[Rover_KE]

Ok,I checked grammar book,"no matter' has to go with "what ,who, when, where, which, how.."to make it work. What I want to know is even with the correct answer,does the sentence "All people, whether they are old or young, rich or poor, have been trying their best to help those in need since the disaster. "sound perfectly ok or still a little bit weird?

What's the best way to write this sentence?

Consider this:

'All people – young and old, rich and poor – have been trying their best to help those in need since the disaster.'

 

[emsr2d2]

Ok, I checked a grammar book. "No matter" has to go with "what, who, when, where, which, how" to make it work. What I want to know is even with the correct answer, does the sentence "All people, whether they are old or young, rich or poor, have been trying their best to help those in need since the disaster" sound perfectly OK or still a little bit weird? What's the best way to write this sentence?

I have no problem at all with your original sentence. The only thing I would change would be to write "young or old" rather than "old or young". That's not a grammatical correction, it's just a case of the order in which we normally say those words.

Be careful with your punctuation spacing. Remember to put a space after every comma, full stop, question mark, exclamation mark and closing quotation marks, and a space before opening quotation marks.