Either and neither

Open Forum
1

The man in Apartment 1 wasn’t home. He was washing his clothes at the laundromat.
The woman in Apartment 2 wasn’t home either.

Question: Is it okay to use “neither” to replace “either” here?
Thank you!!!

2

Not in this case. “Neither” would include both people at the same time. To make it work you would have to rearrange the sentence. for example “neither the man in apartment 1 or the woman in apartment 2 were home.”

“Either” in this case is being used has similar meaning to “as well” or “also.”
“the Woman is apartment 2 wasn’t home as well”

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3

@robertbiggar is correct. Note that “neither” is like “not either”. The (improper) phrase “… wasn’t home neither” would be a double negative, and English does not like double negatives.

You could say, “Neither was the woman in Apartment 2 home.” That’s grammatically correct, and you’ll see phrases like this occassionally. But since it’s used as a reference to the previous statement, the part in common is often left unstated: “He wasn’t home. Neither was the woman in Apt. 2”. It sounds a bit heavy to say in this example, “Neither was the woman in Apt. 2 home” unless for emphasis.

I would never say, “The woman in Apt. 2 was home neither”. When placed at the end, I would always say, “The woman in Apt. 2 was not home either”.

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4

Can I make sure the example you made is…

  1. neither the man in apartment 1 OR the woman in apartment 2 were home
    or
  2. neither the man in apartment 1 NOR the woman in apartment 2 were home?

Thank you!!!

5

#2 is right.

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6

@LILingquist is correct. I would also like to add, you might hear or see either one in a more informal setting. They would be wrong, but this would be a common mistake made by a native speaker.

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