| 词组 | each other |
| 释义 | each other 1. Each other, one another. Bardeen 1883 indicates that the use of each other for one another is legitimate, though carped at by some critics; Bardeen had found his carping critic in Ayres 1881. Actually the prescriptive rule that each other is to be restricted to two and one another to more than two goes back even farther than Ayres. Goold Brown 1851 cites the rule with approbation, and quotes it from an even earlier grammarian, one T. O. Churchill (A New Grammar of the English Language, London, 1823). Churchill may have invented the rule; Brown had collected nearly every grammar of English published up to his time, and he mentions no earlier instance. But Goold Brown also notes that "misapplications of the foregoing reciprocal terms are very frequent in books" and goes on to cite Samuel Johnson and Noah Webster in error. He further notes that "it is strange that phrases so very common should not be rightly understood." It is perhaps easier now than it was in 1851 to see why: evidence in the OED shows that the restriction has never existed in practice; the interchangeability of each other and one another had been established centuries before T. O. Churchill (or whoever it was) thought up the rule. Fowler 1926 notes that some writers follow the rule but goes on to state that "the differentiation is neither of present utility nor based on historical usage; the old distributive of two as opposed to several was not e[ach] but either; & either other, which formerly existed beside e[ach] o[ther] & one another would doubtless have survived if its special meaning had been required." Even Fowler's high reputation among usage commentators has not convinced those to whom the rule is dear; many still prescribe it. A few examples may illustrate the rule's baselessness: • Sixteen ministers who meet weekly at each other's houses —Samuel Johnson, Life of Swift (in Brown 1851) • Most of whom live remote from each other —Noah Webster, Essays (in Literary Digest, 5 July 1924) • The spouse aspires to an union with Christ, their mutual love for one another —chapter gloss, Canticle of Canticles (Douay Version), 1609 • Two negatives in English destroy one another — Lowth 1762 • It is a bad thing that men should hate each other; but it is far worse that they should contract the habit of cutting one another's throats without hatred —T. B. Macaulay (in Webster 1909) • ... and the charity of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth —2 Thessalonians 1:3 (AV), 1611 • ... he and Bikki were extremely jealous of one another —Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm, 1932 • ... and there is a chain of witnesses who confirm each other —G. K. Chesterton, "The Oracle of the Dog," 1923 • ... Janet and Marcia would, by way of greeting, neigh at one another —John Updike, Couples, 1968 • They had been marrying one another for so many centuries that they had bred into themselves just the qualities, ignorance and idiocy, they could least afford. At the funeral of Edward VII in London they had pushed and shoved and elbowed each other like children for places in the cortege —E. L. Doctorow, Ragtime, 1975 A few commentators believe the rule to be followed in "formal discourse." This belief will not bear examination: Samuel Johnson's discourse is perhaps the most consistently formal that exists in English literature, and he has been cited in violation of the rule. We conclude that the rule restricting each other to two and one another to more than two was cut out of the whole cloth. There is no sin in its violation. It is, however, easy and painless to observe if you so wish. 2.Each other's, one another's. Goold Brown 1851 cites some unidentified writer as using each others', which he finds wrong in that instance. In Johnson's use, cited above, however, he thinks each others' more logical. The evidence in Merriam-Webster files indicates that the possessive is regularly each other's, one another's. We have no evidence that Goold Brown's reasoning has been followed. Johnson 1982 notes that the following noun can be either singular or plural; our evidence agrees: • ... all entities or factors in the universe are essentially relevant to each other's existence —Alfred North Whitehead, Essays in Science and Philosophy, 1947 • ... its members still frequently exchange visits to each other's homes —Current Biography, January 1968 3. Henry Bradley, in the E volume of the OED, observes that the use of each other as the subject of a clause is "a vulgarism occasionally heard"; he does not, however, present either substantiation or quoted example. Fowler 1926 and Partridge 1942 agree; so does Heritage 1982, which cautiously bans it only from "formal writing," however. Evidence in the Merriam-Webster files indicates that such use is nearly nonexistent in edited prose. If each other is by now a fully established pronoun, there is no grammatical reason it could not be the subject of a clause, but it is simply not so used. Perhaps uncertainty about the number of the verb is a deterrent. |
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