ABSTRACT
Between is properly used of two,” wrote Samuel Johnson in his dictionary in 1755, “and among of more.” Ever the realist, he added, “But perhaps this accuracy is not always preserved.” Indeed it is not. The American dictionary-maker Noah Webster observed “that between is not restricted to two.” The editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, Sir James A. H. Murray, surveyed past practice from the vantage point of 1888 and reported, “In all senses between has been, from its earliest appearance, extended to more than two.” He concluded, as William Safire notes, that “between is still the only word available to express the relation of a thing to many surrounding things severally and individually, among expressing a relation to them collectively and vaguely.” Wordsmith Safire himself generally prefers between for two, and among for more than two, but says he would “feel more comfortable with ‘the battle between Japan, Europe, and America’ because it is a battle between Japan and Europe, between Europe and America, and between Japan and America.” 1
