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shuhuang
Joined: 09 Mar 2009
Posts: 33
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 Posted: Sun May 24, 2009 10:26 pm Post subject: between vs among |
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Hi, teachers
Could you please explain the use of "between" in the following sentence? The Bermuda Triangle is an area between Bermuda, Florida, and Puerto Rico.
Why isn't the word "among" used, since three places are mentioned?
Thank you. |
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dragn
Joined: 17 Feb 2009
Posts: 450
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| Posted: Tue May 26, 2009 2:16 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
Could you please explain the use of "between" in the following sentence? The Bermuda Triangle is an area between Bermuda, Florida, and Puerto Rico.
Why isn't the word "among" used, since three places are mentioned? |
The old "between = 2 / among = 3+" rule is an oversimplification that simply doesn't accurately reflect the way we sometimes use these two words. We normally say that...
...st/sb is between two or more clearly separate, distinct things.
...st/sb is among a crowd or mass of things that we do not distinguish separately or individually.
In the given example, Bermuda, Florida, and Puerto Rico are three clearly separate, distinct places. They do not represent a crowd or mass of things that are not distinguished individually. I admit that this is slippery business, but between sounds perfectly natural to me here, and among sounds...weird.
Greg |
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