Among

[Allen165]

"The transfer rules had to be modified, and this led to an increase in the movement of workers between the Member States."

I know the above sentence is somewhat awkward, but I couldn't come up with a better example. My question is, if "Member States" can mean more than two Member States, should I replace "between" with "among"?

Thanks.

 

[bertietheblue]

"The transfer rules had to be modified, and this led to an increase in the movement of workers between the Member States."

I know the above sentence is somewhat awkward, but I couldn't come up with a better example. My question is, if "Member States" can mean more than two Member States, should I replace "between" with "among"?

Thanks.

That's a tricky one because you can (and sometimes should) use 'between' with more than 2 objects where you are emphasising distinction, but here that's not the case - movement could be in many directions. I think 'among'. But note you would say 'an agreement between Member States [note no 'the' - this is optional before 'Member States' where you mean all EU Member States. Or do you mean EEA Member States? Is 'Member States' defined earlier (if this is a legal document)? Not important of course if this is not a legal document.].

PS: I don't think the sentence is awkward at all but I'd replace 'and this' with 'which' - it's shorter and if this is a legal document, know now that legal documents positively love relative clauses. Sometimes you will start with the subject of a main clause and then go through several relative clauses and 10, 20, 30 lines of A4 before returning to the object of the main clause, and you have to break the paragraph down into clauses to have any idea what the heck the author is talking about.

Hope that helps!

 

[Allen165]

That's a tricky one because you can (and sometimes should) use 'between' with more than 2 objects where you are emphasising distinction, but here that's not the case - movement could be in many directions. I think 'among'. But note you would say 'an agreement between Member States [note no 'the' - this is optional before 'Member States' where you mean all EU Member States. Or do you mean EEA Member States? Is 'Member States' defined earlier (if this is a legal document)? Not important of course if this is not a legal document.].

PS: I don't think the sentence is awkward at all but I'd replace 'and this' with 'which' - it's shorter and if this is a legal document, know now that legal documents positively love relative clauses. Sometimes you will start with the subject of a main clause and then go through several relative clauses and 10, 20, 30 lines of A4 before returning to the object of the main clause, and you have to break the paragraph down into clauses to have any idea what the heck the author is talking about.

Hope that helps!

"Member States" refers to the Member States of the EU. I always write "the Member States" because I'm talking about specific member states, but I know that many people leave out "the."

Thanks!