To Have a High Income
Nov 14th 2011 05:07
number-selection
(A) Both of my brothers don't have a high income.
(B) Both of my brothers don't have high incomes.
Do you think both "a high income" and "high incomes" correct?
(What I'm interested in is whether the plural form of the subject here influences the selection of the number of "income".)
I'd appreciate your opinions!
(B) Both of my brothers don't have high incomes.
Do you think both "a high income" and "high incomes" correct?
(What I'm interested in is whether the plural form of the subject here influences the selection of the number of "income".)
I'd appreciate your opinions!
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Neither of my brothers has a high income.
In this sentence, "income" has to be singular, because "neither of my brothers" is a singular subject (as you probably noticed because the verb form after it is "has", not "have").
Between (A) and (B), I would say that (B) is more natural, because "both of my brothers" is a plural subject-- it would be followed by "are" in other sentences, not "is." It's hard to use my intuition on this, however, because both sentences sound less natural than the sentence using "neither."
Neither of my brothers is good at tennis.
Neither of my brothers is a good listener.
Both of my brothers are good at tennis.
Both of my brothers are good listeners.
Suppose the brothers are named Kenji and Takashi. I would say:
Neither Kenji nor Takashi has a high income. [singular subject]
In my way of thinking about "neither of", the phrase "neither of my brothers" is equivalent to "neither Kenji nor Takashi" in this case, so I would never consider using it as a plural subject. Perhaps there is disagreement in the "neither ... nor..." case as well, though; I don't know.
(A) Neither of my brothers don't have a high income.
As for number, "both" is plural but "neither" is singular, so "Both of my sisters have jobs, but neither has a high income."
(Yes, it's weird. Even weirder is that "every" is singular. Every language has a few weird features here and there.)
By the way, you all say "both don't" is unnatural, but how about the next sentence with a certain context?
(C) "Oh, that two men are your brothers? They both have an expensive-looking car!"
"Yeah they do, but actually both don't have high incomes."
"Yeah, they do, but actually neither of them has a high income."
"That" cannot be used with a plural noun. You can say "Each of them has an expensive-looking car", but if you mean that there are two cars, one for each brother, you must say "cars" when you use "both." The phrase "both don't have" is still unnatural, at least in my dialect of English.