Listen to Bing, ‘Don’t mess with Mister In-Between’
Bing Crosby once crooned in a classic song, “You’ve got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch on to the affirmative; don’t mess with Mister InBetween.” He sure got that last part right. Perhaps no preposition causes more problems than “between” does.
Let’s start with the classic rivalry between “Between” and his brother “Among.” The standard maxim is that “between” should be used when referring to two items (“The inheritance was divided between the two brothers”) and “among” when referring to more than two items (“The inheritance was divided among the five brothers”).
The Oxford English Dictionary summarizes the distinction this way: “Between” expresses one-on-one relations of many things, and “among” expresses collective and undefined relations.
But this “rule” has many exceptions. When more than two items are involved, for instance, “between” can be used to express one-on-one relations. Thus, “fighting broke out between the four nations,” suggests they’ve squared off against each other in one-on-one matchups, while “fighting broke out among the four nations” suggests free-for-all, indiscriminate fighting.
Similarly, “Juanita is choosing between jobs in New York, Denver and Seattle” suggests she’s been offered one job in each city, while “Juanita is choosing among jobs in New York, Denver and Seattle” suggests she’s been offered multiple jobs in each location.
And sometimes “between” is simply the more natural-sounding choice, even when many items are being referenced. Thus, we’d say, “The six hitchhikers don’t have a dime between them,” or “The alley runs between several houses.”
Other problems involving “between” include:
• Using “between you and I” instead of “between you and me” – This mistake is often attributed to what linguists call “hypercorrection.” In this case, because we were presumably corrected as children for using “you and me” in the nominative case (“You and me can go to the store”), we’re afraid to use “you and me” when it’s correct in the objective case.
• Using “and” with a range of numbers – “We expect between 10 and 12 people” technically means you expect 11 people. To indicate the intended range, use “from” instead, e.g., “We expect from 10 to 12 people.”
• Using the illogical phrase “between each,” as in “Bing always rested between each recording session.” Instead, write, “Bing always rested between recording sessions” – and presumably never messed with Mr. In-Between.