{"id":8401,"date":"2013-10-29T12:39:32","date_gmt":"2013-10-29T12:39:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/10\/29\/each-otherone-another\/"},"modified":"2013-10-29T12:39:32","modified_gmt":"2013-10-29T12:39:32","slug":"each-otherone-another","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/10\/29\/each-otherone-another\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Each Other’ versus ‘One Another’"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are still a lot of posts from the old Powerblogs site that have yet to be uploaded here.  What follows is one that even I find pedantic.  And I'm a pedant!<\/span><\/p>\n

Can 'each other'  and 'one another' be used interchangeably by good writers, or is there some distinction we need to observe? Compare 'less' and 'fewer.' Good writers know that 'less' is used with mass nouns such as 'food,' 'furniture'  and 'snow' whereas 'fewer' is employed with such count nouns as 'meals,' 'tables' and 'snow plows.' Correct<\/em>: 'If you eat less, you consume fewer<\/em> calories.' Incorrect<\/em>: 'If you eat less, you consume less<\/em> calories.'  The second sentence should grate against your linguistic sensibilities.<\/span><\/p>\n

No doubt there are schoolmarm strictures that good writers may violate with impunity. 'Never split an infinitive' and 'Never begin a sentence with a conjunction' are two examples. But I deny that the fewer\/less distinction is in the same grammatical boat: it reflects prima facie<\/em> logical and ontological distinctions that need to be acknowledged. They are distinctions of the Manifest Image, to borrow a term from Wilfrid Sellars, distinctions that are innocent until proven guilty. Whether these distinctions can survive deeper logical and ontological analysis is a further question.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now on to my topic.   <\/span><\/p>\n

Bill and Ron are chess players who play each other on Sunday afternoons. But we could just as well say that they play one another on Sunday afternoons. For if each plays the other, then each plays<\/span>
another. And if each one plays another, then each one plays the other given that there are only two players. Now suppose Bill and Ron start a chess club with more than two members. When the members meet they play one another, not each other. Why?<\/span><\/p>\n

Suppose there are three members. Each one plays one of the others; it is not the case that each one plays the other — for the simple reason that there are two others. Since each one plays one of the two others, each one plays an other, hence another.<\/span><\/p>\n

I therefore lay down the following rule. 'Each other' and 'one another' are stylistic variants of each other, and are to that extent intersubstitutable salva significatione, <\/em> in contexts in which two things stand in some sort of reciprocal relation. In contexts in which more than two things stand in some sort of reciprocal relation, however, 'one another' is correct and 'each other' incorrect.<\/span><\/p>\n

How did I arrive at this? Well, I gave an argument that appeals to  your reason. I did not invoke any authority — that would be  unphilosophical. Nor does actual usage cut any ice with me. Since  grammar has a normative component, it cannot merely describe actual usage. For if boneheads prevail, usage degenerates. Describing the details of degeneration may well be a worthwhile linguistic exercise,  but conservatives, here as elsewhere, want to impede degeneration rather than merely record it. Grammar must be based in logic, logic in ontology, ontology in — what?   Onto-theology? <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are still a lot of posts from the old Powerblogs site that have yet to be uploaded here.  What follows is one that even I find pedantic.  And I'm a pedant! Can 'each other'  and 'one another' be used interchangeably by good writers, or is there some distinction we need to observe? Compare 'less' … Continue reading “‘Each Other’ versus ‘One Another’”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language-matters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8401\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}