student asking question

Can I use "among" instead of "between" here?

teacher

Native speaker’s answer

Rebecca

Excellent question. Unfortunately here you cannot swap "between" with "among". We use "between" when there are more than two elements involved. "Among" is used when talking about people or things that are not distinct and are viewed as a group. So in this case he is talking about different households (two elements) so "between" has to be used. If we change to "among" then it suggests that he means spreading in one household between different family members. Which is not what he means here. Ex: The trade talks between Brazil, Argentina, and Chile are going well. Ex: The trade talks among the countries of South America are going well. Ex: I’m trying to decide between the green shirt, the blue shirt, and the black shirt. Ex: I’m trying to decide among these shirts.

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