Neither religion nor politics are particularly good choices for dinner conversation, but the guests at the state department dinner did not seem to heed this longstanding advice, as they spent most of the night debating the U.S. response to a recent Vatican decision.
(A) Neither religion nor politics are particularly good choices for dinner conversation, but
(B) Neither religion nor politics are particularly good choices for dinner conversation;
(C) Neither religion nor politics is a particularly good choice for dinner conversation, but
(D) Religion and politics is neither a particularly good choice for dinner conversation, but
(E) Religion, along with politics, are not particularly good choices for dinner conversation, and
This question is based on Subject-Verb agreement and Construction.
When two nouns or pronouns are joined by the correlative conjunctions - neither-nor, the verb agrees with whichever noun/pronoun is closer to it. In this sentence, the noun ‘politics’ is closer to the verb.
There are certain nouns in English that seem to be plural but are always used in the singular and are followed by a singular verb. For example: economics, physics, news etc. Politics is another such noun, which must be followed by the verb in the singular.
In Options A and B, the plural verb ‘are’ is present. There is a subject-verb disagreement in Options A and B. Furthermore, in Option B, the conjunction ‘but’ has been replaced by a semi-colon; the conjunction ‘but’ conveys a contrast, which is necessary to maintain the logic of the sentence; this logic is not conveyed by the semi-colon. So, Options A and B can be eliminated.
Option D contains a subject-verb agreement error. When two nouns or pronouns are joined by the conjunction 'and', the subject is considered plural. The singular verb ‘is’ does not agree with the plural subject “Religion and politics”. So, Option D can be eliminated.
When two nouns or pronouns are joined by the phrase “along with”, the verb agrees with the primary subject, which in this case, is “Religion. Since the subject is singular, the plural verb ‘are’ does not agree with it. So, Option E can be eliminated.
Option C maintains subject-verb agreement. Therefore, C is the most appropriate option.