There’s usually no problem when people use “between” as a stand-alone preposition to mean “from one to another,” as in “There’s no secret between us,” or to mean “something shared or in common to,” as in “The inheritance was divided between the patriarch’s four sisters.” But when it comes to “between” in the sense of “setting the limits or endpoints of a range,” many young professional writers often flub the usage. Seemingly from force of habit, they would write, say, “The taipan’s fortune is estimated between P50 billion to P60 billion,” where, of course, the preposition “to” need to be replaced by the conjunction “and” to make the grammar of the sentence beyond reproach: “The taipan’s fortune is estimated between P50 billion and P60 billion.”
It was the high incidence of such faulty usage in manuscripts for intended for publication that prompted me to write the essay below, “A recurrent misuse of ‘between’,” late last year in my column in The Manila Times. I hope that reading this essay could help wean off more people from this wrongheaded preposition usage that, if committed repeatedly, could mark them as less than grammar-savvy English writers or speakers.
A recurrent misuse of ‘between’
One grammar error I frequently encounter in my work as a copy editor is the misuse of the preposition “between” in the sense of setting the limits or endpoints of a range. This usage of “between” being so basic in English (as in “between you and me” and “between heaven and earth”), I used to think that getting it wrong was simply due to oversight by the writer or to what we might charitably call a typing error. But over the past three years or so, my coming across this grammar transgression much too often has convinced me that there’s actually more to the problem than meets the eye.
Consider the following sentences (I have changed some particulars to protect the identity of the writers): “Putting up a water refilling station requires an initial capital outlay of anywhere between P600,000 to P1.1 million.” “Plain chocolate contains between 30 percent to 70 percent cocoa solids.” “Each shop can carry between 1,000 to 1,800 items, with groceries comprising the bulk of its sales.” “The tunnel provided the perfect setting for the locals, who could only go partying between 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. because of the curfew.” “The estimated investment recovery period for the restaurant is between one to three years.” “His distributorship moves between 1,000 to 2,500 units a month.”
In all of the six “between”-using sentences above, of course, the grammatically acceptable usage is not “between _______ to_______” but “between _______ and _______” instead: “Putting up a water refilling station requires an initial capital outlay of anywhere between P600,000 and P1.1 million.” “Plain chocolate contains between 30 percent and 70 percent cocoa solids.” “Each shop can carry between 1,000 and 1,800 items, with groceries comprising the bulk of its sales.” “The tunnel provided the perfect setting for the locals, who could only go partying between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. because of the curfew.” “The estimated investment recovery period for the restaurant is between one and three years.” “His distributorship moves between 1,000 and 2,500 units a month.” This is because in all of the six sentences, the “between”-phrase is describing not the range itself but a point somewhere within that range.
Now, for those who’d rather use “to” because they feel queasy using “and” as go-between for the endpoints of the range, there’s a perfectly acceptable alternative: get rid of “between” and replace it with the preposition “from,” and, if possible, get rid of “from” itself afterwards. The original five sentences will then read as follows: “Putting up a water refilling station requires an initial capital outlay of anywhere from P600,000 to P1.1 million.” “Plain chocolate contains from 30 percent to 70 percent cocoa solids.” “Each shop can carry 1,000 to 1,800 items, with groceries comprising the bulk of its sales.” “The tunnel provided the perfect setting for the locals, who could only go partying from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. because of the curfew.” “The estimated investment recovery period for the restaurant is one to three years.” “His distributorship moves 1,000 to 2,500 units a month.”
Note that the third, fifth and sixth sentences above did away with “from” and are none the worse for it. In all six sentences, though, it’s clear that the phrase at hand is describing not a particular point within that range but the range itself.
There’s one other thing to make sure of when converting an erroneous “between _______ to _______” phrase to a “from _______ to _______” phrase in which the endpoints are dates: don’t change the “to” to a hyphen. When correcting, say, “The business flourished between 1995 to 2007, then floundered during the 2008 economic meltdown,” avoid reconstructing the sentence as “The business flourished from 1995-2007, then floundered during the 2008 economic meltdown.” For clarity and elegance in construction, always spell out the “to”: “The business flourished from 1995 to 2007, then floundered during the 2008 economic meltdown.”
From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, November 15, 2008 issue © 2008 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
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Another commonly used word is "irregardless" instead of "regardless".
ReplyDeleteSometimes, one hears Americans using this word, "irregardless" and many Filipinos, too.
1. She has come to like Jamie "irregardless" of his poor background.
I know this word doesn't exist in the Oxford dictionary though, however, it still gets into the mainstream of conversation.
2. Regardless of the outcome, I will prevail...
or, should it be:
3. I will prevail, regardless of the outcome, since regardless is a conjunction. (?)
4. How about the double conjunction, "but nevertheless, I'd rather stay in the dark no matter how scary it is..."
Regarding “irregardless,” I actually have much to say about this misguided usage, so I am sharing with you below excerpts from Chapter 44 of my first English-usage book, English Plain and Simple, No-Nonsense Ways to Learn Today’s Global Language.
ReplyDeleteIt’s perfectly OK to say either “Regardless of the outcome, I will prevail” or “I will prevail, regardless of the outcome.” But no, “regardless” is functioning in that sentence not as a conjunction but as a preposition, and there’s really no grammar rule outlawing prepositions from being positioned up front in a sentence, as in “Of mice and men, I have lots to say” and “Rather than flee, I fought the enemy headlong.” (These sentences sound as well when constructed as “I have lots to say of mice and men” and “I fought the enemy headlong rather than flee.”) Neither is there a grammar rule outlawing conjunctions from starting a sentence, as in “As I expected, we reached the theater an hour late” and “Yet to be decided upon is the matter of early elections.” (Both read as well when constructed as “We reached the theater an hour late as I expected” and “The matter of early elections is yet to be decided upon.”)
As to the statement “…but nevertheless, I’d rather stay in the dark no matter how scary it is...”, the double conjunction “but nevertheless” is indeed a redundancy. Just knock off
the redundant “but” and the sentence becomes grammatically airtight.
‘Irregardless’ and Other Grammar Bugaboos
Practically all dictionaries consider “irregardless” an abomination. It has been roundly condemned for its logical absurdity. The two negatives that flank the word “regard”—the ir- prefix and the –less suffix—cancel each other out to yield a positive meaning. (Recall that the prefix ir- before an adjective whose first syllable is “r” means “not,” and the suffix –less after a word means “without” or “none.”) “Irregardless” is therefore not the same thing as “regardless,” which means “without regard or consideration for,” “in spite of,” or “despite.” So the phrase “irregardless of what happened during the awards night” is sheer nonsense.
“Irregardless” is thought to have started in the United States as an improper blend of the words “irrespective” and “regardless,” and as The American Heritage Dictionary states, the word “has no legitimate antecedents in either standard or nonstandard varieties of English.” In short, it is a big bugaboo, a goblin of a word. But why does it persist in its imaginary existence and refuse to fade away? One theory is that “irregardless” is better sounding than “regardless.” By sporting the prefix ir, “irregardless” exudes a stronger negative feel, which is good for emphasis. Thus, from time to time, even respectable newspapers are seduced by it, such as The New York Times in this passage: “Irregardless of the benefit to children from what he calls his ‘crusade to rescue American education,’ his own political miscalculations and sometimes deliberate artlessness have greatly contributed to his present difficulties.”
So shall we tolerate “irregardless” even if we know that it is nonstandard and unacceptable English?
My feeling is that if we do, we might as well admit into Standard English usage such grammatical bugaboos as “abolishment” for “abolition,” “recognizement” for “recognition,” and “supposively” for “supposedly.” And while we are at it, we might as well gracefully accept such widespread grammatical travesties as “taken cared of” for “taken care of,” “the reason is because” for “the reason is that,” “different than” for “different from,” and “that is to your according” for “that is what you say.”
Knowing its shady background, however, I will never use “irregardless” in my spoken English as a matter of principle and good grammar. And as a matter of good sense, I will ruthlessly edit it out and replace it with “regardless” in every manuscript that comes my way. All who aspire to achieve impeccable English will be one step nearer that goal by similarly banishing “irregardless” from their vocabulary for life.