Already a subscriber? Log in
I know that this sounds like something Hyacinth Bucket, or anyone else more eager to be genteel than certain about grammar. The difficulty has been touched on here before. But Shakespeare did write it, or at least someone wrote down what was supposed to be his composition. It didn’t surprise the late Dr Robert Burchfield, though. In the New Fowler’s he was perfectly aware of this hiccup in the Merchant, and another on the lips of Mistress Page: ‘There is such a league between my Goodman and he.’
Dr Burchfield did not go as far as to say that because Shakespeare wrote it, the construction was right, but he did remark that ‘I, he and other pronouns were frequently used in earlier centuries in ways now regarded as ungrammatical.’ His predecessor, the great Henry Fowler himself, keeps Shakespeare out of it and simply notes that the use of you and I, after this ‘sadly ill-treated word’ between perhaps results ‘from a hazy remembrance of hearing you and me corrected in the subjective’. Quite so.
Between you, me and the lamppost, between need not relate to two things alone, for there is no other word, certainly not among, to express the required sense in examples such as ‘the space between three points’ or ‘The choice lies between three applicants for the job.’
Fowler went on to assert that it is wrong to say, ‘The batsman blew his nose between every ball.’ It should be after every ball, between the balls, or between every ball and the next. The presumed difficulty is that every ball (or each) does not signify a plural. I find it difficult to think I wouldn’t use constructions such as ‘She had rubbed sun cream between every finger.’ Would you? I bet Shakespeare would have done.
Also in Society
Latest
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in