neither with nor and semicolons

"Either shall go with or; neither shall go with nor - and ne'er shall there be mixing o' the pairs, lest you feel the birch switch of correction."

(As drummed into our tender heads during our forced tenure in parochial elementary schools of the '50s...)

Otherwise, your use of the semicolon in the compound sentence is correct. The use of the period (to render the thought as two sentences) makes the second awkward at best, and arguably wrong as well since a verb seems to be missing. Read it (the second sentence - "Neither did Jane nor Billy.") aloud... The verb see is only implied or inferred; that typically only works in dialog.

I actually don't like any of these; they all sound kind of not quite right...I'm sure grammatically they're fine, they just don't read well. I'd say this instead:

"My best friend, John, didn't see it; nor did Jane or Billy." It just sounds better to me. I also actually think you could leave out the "best friend" part - you'll probably establish later on that John is your best friend.

"John didn't see it; nor did Jane or Billy." It's crisper.

My $0.02.

peanut said:

My best friend, John, didn't see it; neither did Jane nor Billy.

Click to expand...

This one might be technically correct, but comes across as pompous and pedantic to the point of being ridiculous.

peanut said:

My best friend, John, didn't see it. Neither did Jane or Billy.

Click to expand...

This may not be technically correct, but is certainly what I'd use, out of the four options you've offered, and is what I suggest you use.

(I agree that leaving out the "best friend" part, if you can, is better. Or maybe just refer to him as "my friend John"?)