neither...nor

[Tortoise]

I think it’s a common sense that in Neither … nor structure, verb conjugation depends on the subject (singular or plural) closest to the conjugated verb.

But please refer to the following article,

nytimes.com/2012/05/07/world … s-arc.html

and go to the last sentence of paragraph 6, which reads

“Neither Mr. Bo nor Ms. Gu have been given an opportunity to defend themselves publicly.”

So there is a mistake here right?

[Esl_Expert]

Yes, the verb should be singular in that sentence.
However, I would say this is a very common sort of error since the sense of ‘neither nor’ is ‘both not’, and ‘both’ takes a plural verb.

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[size=75]“Neither a borrower nor a lender be.” ~ William Shakespeare[/size]