Use of other

[birendrapnayak]

I have written a sentence a paragraph like this:

In 2009 there were eight banks in my town. Five of these eight banks were privately owned, whereas the other three were owned by the Government.

Is "the other three" okay here? Or should it be "the three other"?

[masterding]

I have written a sentence a paragraph like this:

In 2009 there were eight banks in my town. Five of these eight banks are privately owned, whereas the other three are owned by the Government.

Is "the other three" okay here? Or should it be "the three other"?

Not a teacher ,nor a native
In my opinion ,"the other three" is correct, or you can say "the three other banks".

[Rover_KE]

Not a teacher ,nor a native
In my opinion ,"the other three" is correct, or you can say "the three other banks".

I agree with you about 'the other three', masterding.

'...the three other banks' is not advisable as the word banks has already been used twice before.

In fact, birendrapnayak, you could improve your second sentence by changing 'five of these eight banks' to 'five of them'.

Rover

[emsr2d2]

I have written a sentence a paragraph like this:

In 2009 there were eight banks in my town. Five of these eight banks were privately owned, whereas the other three were owned by the Government.

Is "The other three" okay here? Or should it be "the three other"?

"the other three" is absolutely fine.

The sentence could be shortened even more, if you're interested, to:

In 2009 there were eight banks in my town, five privately-owned and three Government-owned.

[birendrapnayak]

Thanks very much to all.
I would like to settle with the final answer: "In 2009 there were eight banks in my town, five privately-owned and three Government-owned."
However, I have still got some doubt.
If we mention banks again in the sentence, would it be wrong to say "Five of them were privately owned, whereas the other three banks were Government-owned." Or only <<the three other banks>> is possible here? Somebody told me that the other three banks would be correct only when there are six banks in the town. Is it so?

Birendra

[emsr2d2]

Thanks very much to all.
I would like to settle with the final answer: "In 2009 there were eight banks in my town, five privately-owned and three Government-owned."
However, I have still got some doubt.
If we mention banks again in the sentence, would it be wrong to say "Five of them were privately owned, whereas the other three banks were Government-owned." Or only <<the three other banks>> is possible here? Somebody told me that the other three banks would be correct only when there are six banks in the town. Is it so?

Birendra

"The other three" simply means "the remaining three which I haven't spoken about yet" so it doesn't matter how many you started with.

I can see the argument for "the other three" referring to a "different set of three" when another set of three has already been used but that doesn't have to be the case every time.