student asking question

If I remove "between" from this sentence, does the meaning change?

teacher

Native speaker’s answer

Rebecca

If you took out "between" in this case, the general meaning would stay the same but it would be slightly different. The word "between" means that something is within a range of two things, so this word emphasizes here that the daily intake of water for men is somewhere within the range of 2.5 to 3.7 liters per day. If you removed "between", you would be saying that the daily intake "varies from 2.5 to 3.7". While this sentence could have the same meaning, it may also imply that the daily intake of water for men is either 2.5 liters or it is 3.7 liters, but not anything else in between that range. So if you want to emphasize that something falls within a range and could be at any point of that range, you should use the word "between". Ex: She usually buys between 3 to 5 gallons of milk every week. Ex: She usually buys 3 to 5 gallons of milk every week. In this example, can you see how "between" emphasizes that it isn't either 3 or 5 gallons of milk, but could be anything from 3, 4 or 5?

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