Compound subject "or" [closed]

Solution 1:

The best solution is to rephrase the sentence.

However, in a comment under the question you asked, "If we HAVE to pick one, which one do you think is more correct, assuming I am refering to all of the boys?"

First of all, the following is ungrammatical:

✘ Do the girl . . .

By that standard alone, your second sentence, despite being awkward, is the only one that's grammatical.

However, there is a better alternative. To emphasizes plurality, do so at the start of the sentence by reversing the order of the nouns. In other words:

✔ Do the boys or the girl like to play soccer?

The sentence starts off the correct way with do the boys, using a plural verb and a plural noun. When you get to the end of the sentence, it is mentally translated to account for an elided does the girl like soccer, which is also correct.

In other words, it (mentally) becomes:

Do the boys or [does] the girl like to play soccer?

It's still awkward because normal elision would have us interpret the same verb form applying to both nouns—and it's impossible for that to happen.

However, given that no matter what we use (barring revision) it's going to end up being awkward, this seems like the least awkward of the possible constructions that also places the emphasis on the plural.