「二者都不」— both or either?

來自專欄英文表達點滴談

本文首發於立文悉通微信公眾號（Transystom）

提出問題

• 中文：兩組都沒有死亡病例。

• 英文：There were no deaths in both groups.

這樣表達有什麼問題？

回顧往期內容

「否定表達中的or和and」

先來辨析下面兩個表達：

1. people without disease A or disease B
2. people without disease A and disease B

第一句指既沒有A疾病，也沒有B疾病的人；

一個人只要具有A疾病和B疾病中的任何一種就被排除掉：

× people with disease A only

× people with disease B only

× people with both disease A and disease B

第二句指沒有同時具備A疾病和B疾病的人；

一個人只有同時具有A疾病和B疾病才被排除掉：

√ people with disease A

√ people with disease B

× people with both disease A and disease B

再辨析幾個簡單的句子加深印象：

• She cannot dance or sing.
• 她既不會跳舞也不會唱歌。

• She cannot dance and sing.
• 她不會邊跳舞邊唱歌。

再看類似例子

中文：A組和B組都沒有死亡病例。

這句話排除了以下三種情況：

× There were deaths in group A only

× There were deaths in group B only

× There were deaths in both group A and group B

所以正確的英文是：

There were no deaths in group A or group B.

當然也可以加上either：

There were no deaths in either group A or group B.

如果我們表達成：There were no deaths in both group A and group B.

那麼只排除了以下一種情況，和原意不符：

√ There were deaths in group A only

√ There were deaths in group B only

× There were deaths in both group A and group B

回到最初的問題

表示「兩組都沒有」的時候我們要警惕直接使用both，借鑒上述「either ... or ...」，我們可以使用either。

的確，either可以用於否定句中，表示「兩者都不」：

You use either in a negative statement to refer to each of two things, people, or situations to indicate that the negative statement includes both of them.（柯林斯）

正確的英文是：

• 中文：兩組都沒有死亡病例。
• 英文：There were no deaths in either group.

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