Question

Fill in the blank with the most appropriate word.
__________ Tom nor his wife has a cold.
 a) Neither
 b) Nor
c) Either
d) Or

Answer 1

Hint: The students should go through the options and recognize what the meaning of each option is. Then they should place each option in the sentence and see if the sentence still holds its implication. If it does not, and it changes the entire meaning, then the option is incorrect.

Complete answer:
 A “nor” usually follows a “neither” when they're used in the same sentence. Example - I like neither hot dogs nor burgers.
In the given question, we have to find out which of the options given to us indicate that both Tom and his wife did not have a cold. Thus, the term should be negative and used with ‘nor’.
Let us thus analyze the options given to us in this question:
Option (a), 'neither', refers to ‘not either; not one or the other.’
Therefore, option (a) is correct as it indicates that both Tom and his wife did not have a cold.
Option (b), ‘nor', refers to a function word introducing each except the first term or series, indicating none of them is true.
Therefore, option (b) is incorrect as ‘not’ is not used twice in a sentence that has only two options.
Option (c), ‘either', refers to ‘Introduces the first of two options, the second of which is introduced by "or".
Therefore, option (c) is incorrect as it is not a negative term
Option (d), ‘or’, refers to ’Connects at least two alternative words, phrases, clauses, sentences, etc. each of which could make a passage true.’
Therefore, option (d) is incorrect as it is not negative.

Note:
 In this question, it will be helpful for the student to recall the concept of determiners (as the given options are both adjectives and determiners). A determiner is one of a limited class of noun modifiers that determine the referents of noun phrases.