When Should I Use “Among” or “Between”?
Tom Petty sang, “You belong among the wildflowers,” not “You belong between the wildflowers.” And in addition to being poetry, these song lyrics illustrate an important grammatical distinction. “Between” and “among” have similar meanings, but the words are not interchangeable. The main difference is quantity. “Between” usually refers to two
distinct items, while “among” is used with more than two items or an indefinite group. For example: In general, you should use “between” any time two people are involved, and when expressing a range of numbers (as in, “between 3,000 and 4,000”) or a physical space (such as “between a...
