1. He knew that it would only be a matter of time before another criminal replaced the drug dealer he arrested last week. Nature abhors a

2. As the two lead runners rounded the last corner, they both ran even faster. As the runners approached the finish line, it seemed that the two runners were .......... and neck and no one knew who would win the race at that point.

3. The crowd was antsy because the band they paid to see was now over an hour late. A collective sigh of relief came from the audience as the emcee of the performance finally said, "This next band needs no .......... ."

4. "I would like to tell you where a good swimming hole is but, unfortunately, there are none that I know of in my .......... of the woods. I am fairly new here so you might want to ask someone else who knows the area better," Tom said.

5. He dropped his cell phone somewhere in Disneyland. As he walked back into the park, he knew there was almost no chance of finding the phone in that huge park. It was like trying to find a needle in a .......... .

6. "Jeremy is one of those neither fish nor .......... ' types. He is a loner and is kind of strange. He dresses in antique military clothing and he talks about strange things. The last time I heard him speak in class, he brought up an obscure fact about spiders and it was completely off-topic," Lisa told Jacky.

7. "The fact that you owed someone else money for another product is neither here nor .......... . You owed me the monthly payment for the car you bought from me and you still haven't paid it. The payment is past due so you can expect a late payment charge," Jack said to Jill.

8. "I don't like that huge metal thing, for lack of a better word, in Jenny's yard. It is neither use nor .......... . She says it is a sculpture that she purchased in San Francisco but it doesn't look like art to me," Sally said to Beth.

9. "You should have seen the program on firefighters last night. They must have nerves of ..........! I can't believe what they go through to save people," Max said to Jessica.

10. "I guess my new boyfriend does have some faults. He got angry last night because I talked to my parents for five minutes on the telephone — he complained because he said I was ignoring him. That is the first time he got angry around me," Vanessa said. Emma replied, "Did you expect him to be perfect? Never a rose without a .......... . you know."