The examples in #4, in which the negation is farther away from the "love
nor money" phrase, sound less jarring but still sound odd. Imputing an elided "neither" (as suggested in #5) is possible for some sentences but can't be done in the phrase in question where there is an
actual "not" and therefore no place for an elided element. Would you say "
not for love
nor money" i.e. with the not immediately preceding the phrase containing a "nor"? I always thought that 'not (X or Y)' ~ '(not X) and (not Y)', or using the phrase at hand: 'not (for love or (for) money)' is equivalent to 'not for love and not for money'. What would 'not (for love nor (for) money)' equate to? 'not for love but yes for money'?
An additional (AE) reference on the topic:
from Garner's Modern American Usage
"When the negative of a clause has appeared at the outset of an enumeration, and a disjunctive conjunction is needed, or is generally better than nor. The initial negative carries through to all the enumerated elements."
A BE example:
"Pepsi tracks the same index, while Coke cannot be had for love or money."http://www.economist.com/taxonomy/term/35/154...There may be regional differences but I don't know whether my background will help pin it down since I was born to BE parents living in Canada and now live in the US. Neither of my parents ever said "not X
nor Y", nor have I ever heard it from any of my friends or acquaintences. That it now appears in print, however, seems to be indicative of a trend.
Of course, language is seldom logical and what is said colloquially is not meant to be held up to scrutiny. Two examples from German that always trip me up but don't seem to bother native speakers:
Nichts Genaues weiß man nicht.
Ich steige nicht ein, bevor ich es nicht weiß.
