It cannot, nor it is not. – 'double inversion'? :)

Hi

I know that nor normally insists on the inversed word order, as, for example, in:

Nor is it sufficient to add that…

But sometimes (rare) I meet not-inversed sentences.
Just two examples:

[i]It cannot, nor it is not.

Nor it is worth pursuing that the sandwiches at 10 Downing Street were probably very much better than those in The Centenary at Norton.[/i]

Could you explain, in what cases the inversion with nor is NOT used (and why)?

Hi Tamara,

Your two examples:

sound very odd to me and cry out for inversion. Where do they come from?

A

Hi Alan,

Both are taken from the British National Corpus.

(My own examples are all just ‘in spoken’.)

Hi,

They still sound very odd and I believe that not having inversion after ‘nor’ should be avoided. The only thing I can think of this early in the morning would be a sentence following in parethesis but then requiring inversion later as in:

Nor, it should be noted, would that be acceptable.

A

Aha… So the rule is strict.

Thanks a lot, Alan.

it’s very odd

Maybe it should be:

It cannot be, nor is it.

“It cannot be” is a statement to the effect that something cannot happen (in the future or as a rule – axiom).

“Nor is it” means that it is not (whatever).

Because we’re dealing with both present tense and an expectation for the future, this should be stated thusly:

It is not, nor can it be.

I don’t know… :? :cry:

All I did was a search in the BNC with nor it is, because it was the exact part of a sentence I had been actaully confused…

… Have a look:

sara.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/sa … =nor+it+is

the correct order in that phrase is “nor is it…”