For better or worse, life is full of inseparable pairs:
Salt and pepper.
Guns and ammo.
Pears and cheese.
Dogs and fleas.
Eggs and bacon.
Peanut butter and jelly.
Christmas and pine trees.
And my personal favorite: peanut butter and chocolate.
Within these pairs, you don’t hear about one without the other. (Ok, there are exceptions, especially for people who aren’t crazy about peanut butter…)
As an example, proper table etiquette dictates that we pass both salt and pepper even if the person only asks for one or the other.
To shoot a gun, you must have ammo; otherwise, it’s useless as a weapon.
And can you honestly look at a pine tree and not think about Christmas?
Inseparable pairs are found, presented, named, offered, used, and/or referred to together.
Grammatical matters are not excluded. There are several primary inseparable pairs in grammar; you can’t use one word or phrase apart from the other. Examples include:
– Both/and
– Either/or
– Neither/nor
– Not only/but also
Both both and and should either be used together or not at all; neither one nor the other should appear alone.” ~ Me
When using these inseparable pairs, there are two keys to remember.
1. Never Leave a Man Behind
If we’re going to use one of these words, we can’t forget its partner! That would be tantamount to grocery shopping and forgetting to bring the list (guilty), or heading to the car without keys (umm, guilty again…but I didn’t get very far).
One of the easiest pairs to mess up is the not only/but also combo. Here’s an example:
Not only does she put peanut butter in her tea, she drinks it from a plastic cup instead of a mug!
This is just eww on a number of levels, but let’s examine it grammatically. We just can’t have a not only without a but also. The not only implies a contrast—a heightening and intensifying of whatever we’re trying to say—so it is incomplete and thus not powerful when its other half is missing.
Additionally, notice that without the but also, the second phrase could be a complete sentence on its own; thus it is committing the heinous sin called the comma splice.
Look how this sentence reads with the but also intact:
Not only does she put peanut butter in her tea, but she also drinks it from a plastic cup instead of a mug!
There is now parallel structure. (*OCD panic levels dropping.*) Parallel structure is not only cleaner and easier to read, but it’s also more powerful—precisely because of its readability and clarity!
Long story short: never leave a man behind—or in this case, a word or phrase.
2. Don’t Mix Them Up
Equally detrimental to good writing is using the wrong combo of pairs. That’s like wearing mismatched socks (which should NOT be an appropriate fashion statement) or eating a mustard and jelly sandwich.
Either/or and neither/nor are particular culprits here as they are easy to mismatch.
Sally liked neither candles or bubble bath. In fact, if she were gifted with them, she either threw them away nor enjoyed them.
A quick and easy way to remember which goes with which in this case is the two ns go together and the two vowels go together: Neither/Nor, Either/Or.
Sally liked neither candles nor bubble bath. In fact, if she were gifted with them, she either threw them away or refused to enjoy them.
The Point
Bottom line: As you both write and self-edit, keep a sharp lookout for each of these words. If you see one, make sure the other is in the vicinity (specifically in the same sentence). If it isn’t, either insert it or rewrite the sentence to avoid the problem. Neither forget nor skip this step; it is vital.
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