“二者都不”— both

提出问题

中文：两组都没有死亡病例。

英文：There were no deaths in both groups.

这样表达有什么问题？

回顾往期内容

“否定表达中的or和and”

先来辨析下面两个表达：

people without disease A or disease B

people without disease A and disease B

第一句指既没有A疾病，也没有B疾病的人；

一个人只要具有A疾病和B疾病中的任何一种就被排除掉：

× people with disease A only

× people with disease B only

× people with both disease A and disease B

第二句指没有同时具备A疾病和B疾病的人；

一个人只有同时具有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

再辨析几个简单的句子加深印象：

She cannot dance or sing.

她既不会跳舞也不会唱歌。

She cannot dance and sing.

她不会边跳舞边唱歌。

再看类似例子

中文：A组和B组都没有死亡病例。

这句话排除了以下三种情况：

× There were deaths in group A only

× There were deaths in group B only

× There were deaths in both group A and group B

所以正确的英文是：

There were no deaths in group A or group B.

当然也可以加上either：

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

如果我们表达成：There were no deaths in both group A and group B.

那么只排除了以下一种情况，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

回到最初的问题

表示“两组都没有”的时候我们要警惕直接使用both，借鉴上述“either ... or ...”，我们可以使用either。

的确，either可以用于否定句中，表示“两者都不”：

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）

正确的英文是：

中文：两组都没有死亡病例。

英文：There were no deaths in either group.