Each?

[Dan Goncharoff]

Something in my head is telling me that I wouldn't say "each brother is in
love with the same woman", but I acknowledge that this might just be in my
own head. Hence the question.

Part of the issue is the use of each for two people. But if the number of
brothers is increased, I still don't like the phrase.

DanG


On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 5:22 PM, Randy Alexander
<strangeguitars at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Randy Alexander <strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Each?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Could you not say "each brother is in love with the same woman"?
>
> Isn't their separateness what causes the conflict? I would think that
> emphasizing that might be something that contributes to selecting "each"
> over "both" (although there's no grammatical problem with either).
> On Mar 21, 2014 3:33 PM, "Dan Goncharoff" <thegonch at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Each?
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Read today in the NYTimes book review section:
> >
> > "Many of Ms. Antopol's stories pivot on role reversals. In one of them,
> two
> > brothers in the Israeli Army -- each is in love with the same woman --
> see
> > their tortured relationship upended when one is gravely injured."
> >
> > I would have written 'both are' instead of 'each is', and 'each is'
> strikes
> > me as wrong, in that it denotes a separateness that is violated when
> > followed by 'the same woman'.
> >
> > Am I completely off base, or is this just a matter of 'to each his own'?
> >
> >
> > DanG
> >
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