Should I use 'or' or 'nor'?

Question

This document does not cover the SDK interfaces nor any other reference material.

I think the above is correct, but my grammatical checker in Microsoft Word underlines nor and suggests or. Why?

Answer 1

If the two options are negative (neither this nor that) then use "nor". Otherwise, use "or". Your example sentence can be reworded to read, "This document covers neither the SDK interfaces nor any other reference material."

NOTE: In my experience, Word's grammar checker is mediocre at best. It has a tendency to look at a sentence and suggest the opposite of the correct word. It was especially bad with [your/you're] in versions up to and including 2003, so I just keep it turned off and rely on thorough proof-reading.

Answer 2

My guess is Word interprets this as:

This document does not cover [either] the SDK interfaces or any other reference material.

Compare:

• I don't study French or Spanish. [Equivalent to Word's preference].
• *I don't study French nor Spanish. [Equivalent to your sentence].
• I study neither French nor Spanish. [Equivalent to moioci's first rewrite].
• ?I study neither French or Spanish.

Answer 3

My ear agrees with Word on this one. Two other possibilities:

"This document covers neither the SDK interfaces nor any other reference material."

"This document does not cover the SDK interfaces, nor does it include any other reference material."

Answer 4

"Does not cover" is a single verbal unit, so we effectively ignore the "not" when considering the rest of the sentence structure. That implies we should use "or" to link the noun phrases.