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There are some related tips, but I did not find any one as this.

The sentence:

1) he considers himself a healthy person because he does some sport and neither smokes, drinks nor takes drugs

According the Cambridge Dictionary website (http://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/neither-neither-nor-and-not-either), I suppose that it would be something as follows:

2) he considers himself a healthy person because he does some sport and he does not smoke, drink nor does he take drugs.

I was thinking about these other options:

3) he considers himself a healthy person because he does some sport, does not smoke or drink, neither does he take drugs.

4) he considers himself a healthy person because he does some sport, and he does not smoke or drink, neither does he take drugs.

I have no idea which one is correct or sounds better.

EDIT

Thank you everybody! Now I am clear with it.

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  • 3) he considers himself a healthy person because he plays some sports, does not smoke or drink, nor take drugs. Very good.
    – user98990
    Feb 26, 2015 at 5:33
  • 4) he considers himself a healthy person because he plays some sport, neither does he smoke, drink, or take drugs. also good
    – user98990
    Feb 26, 2015 at 5:40
  • You see, rellampec? There are many ways to structure this, each a little different. The most common formula for "neither & nor" is something like this, "he considers himself a healthy person because he plays some sport, and neither smokes nor takes drugs"
    – user98990
    Feb 26, 2015 at 5:44
  • Unless you are obsessed with neither ... nor. Else it is straightforward with a three-item list: "... he does not smoke, drink or take drugs." Neither ... nor has no business in a list of three. Do not confuse with the use of neither in the original sentence, which is correct in a way.
    – Kris
    Feb 26, 2015 at 6:39
  • Nothing wrong with the original. And there's no significance to using the comma vs "or" between "smokes" and "drinks" -- "smokes", "drinks", and "takes drugs" are three "equal" items in the list that "neither/nor" qualifies, just like a list of several items with "and" between the last two,
    – Hot Licks
    Jun 3, 2015 at 0:13

2 Answers 2

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Number 1 actually looks OK.

In #2, "smoke, drink" s/b "smoke or drink"

In #3, there should be "and" after "sport, "

In #4, it might be better with a semicolon after "sport" rather than a comma, but it's fine as-is.

BTW: in AmE, one would not literally say "he does some sport"; we would say "he participates in a sport", or "he plays {handball/hockey/whatever}", or—if more than one—"he does some sports"

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  • thank you for your comments! That's interesting! In Spanish we have a reference to say that someone does sport in general. It seems that in English you use 'sport' as some particular or specific activity, rather than being involved with some physical activity outside of work.
    – rellampec
    Mar 4, 2015 at 20:19
  • Yes, other general physical activity might be called recreation, exercise, etc. Of course there's overlap. You might bike for pleasure, exercise, recreation; but if you race your bike against other people, that's a sport.
    – Brian Hitchcock
    Mar 5, 2015 at 9:01
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This still uses neither/nor for a list of three, but to my ear it works: ...And neither smokes nor drinks nor takes drugs.

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