Between / Among

Bartholomew · Mar 14, 2009

"He took her hand between his fingers."

"He took her hand among her fingers."

The first one sounds best to me, but I was recently corrected about Among vs Between, and now I'm a bit uncertain about correct usage.

Note: "He" is a giant, so her hand is very small. I'm probably going to edit this in favor of the verb "to pinch" but I'd still like to know which of the words in the title is correct.

Seaclusion · Mar 14, 2009

If he took her hand between his fingers, they would hold hands with their fingers interlaced. If he took her hand among his fingers, he would hold her hand within his hand. A better way to say it would be: He took her hand in his hand and...

Richard

Bartholomew · Mar 14, 2009

Seaclusion said:
If he took her hand between his fingers, they would hold hands with their fingers interlaced. If he took her hand among his fingers, he would hold her hand within his hand. A better way to say it would be: He took her hand in his hand and...

Richard

None of those are really what I need to express; like I said, I'm probably going to revise it so that the verb To Pinch is used.

dancingandflying · Mar 14, 2009

I basically agree with Richard: "between" would suggest they interlaced fingers, but "among" just sounds wrong to me and doesn't give me what I believe to be the correct image. I would use "took her hand in his", but that's just me...

Good luck!

d&f.

ColoradoGuy · Mar 14, 2009

I was taught between is for two things, among for more than two. So if you use between the fingers, that indicates only two of them.

bohica · Mar 19, 2009

Yeah, both statements sound awkward. You might end up going with something like, "He took her hand..." and then follow it with some elaboration on the size of her fingers compared to his, or how her fingers barely covered the tip of one of his, et cetera. Without a little more context it's hard to say :>

Matera the Mad · Mar 19, 2009

$0.02>
Between implies two things, one on each side of an object or person.

Among tells me that said item is surrounded by more than two.

A giant might well take a small person's hand daintily between thumb and finger, lest a hearty handshake result in a broken arm. lol

Dawnstorm · Mar 20, 2009

The "between = 2/among > 2" guideline is really more confusing than helpful, especially considering the original example of the thread. It's "between his fingers", no matter how many fingers are involved. (Well, in a leper colony he might conceivably take her hand and hide it among his fingers. If both hand and fingers are decayed enough, the hand might even be hard enough to spot to merit an among...)

It's all rather complex. Here's the best article on it I could find.

Between / Among

Bartholomew

Comic guy

Seaclusion

Absolute Parsley

Bartholomew

Comic guy

dancingandflying

Is it tea time yet?

ColoradoGuy

I've seen worse.

bohica

scribe to dark muses

Matera the Mad

Bartender, gimme a Linux Mint

Dawnstorm

punny user title, here