There are still sticklers among us who see a distinct difference between each other <\/em>and one another<\/em>. They use each other<\/em> when discussing two people or things, and one another<\/em> when discussing more than two people or things.<\/p>\n According to this system, the following sentences would both be correct: The twins told each other everything<\/em> and The triplets told one another everything<\/em>. But The twins told one another everything\u00a0<\/em>and The triplets told each other everything<\/em> would both be incorrect.<\/p>\n This rule has been around since the eighteenth century. Yet it is routinely ignored by just about everyone, including our finest writers. Nowadays, virtually no one even knows it exists.<\/p>\n Taken literally, the phrase each other<\/em> does seem limited to two entities only, represented by the singular pronoun each<\/em> and the singular pronoun other<\/em>.<\/p>\n The twins told each other everything<\/em> means that each twin told the other twin everything. So far, so good. But The triplets told each other everything<\/em> means that each triplet told the \u201cother\u201d triplet everything\u2014which makes no sense because there are two<\/em> other triplets.<\/p>\n So instead the sticklers demand The triplets told <\/em>one another<\/strong><\/em> everything<\/em>. To them, other <\/em>means \u201cone of two\u201d and another <\/em>means \u201cone of more than two.\u201d By this reasoning, one another<\/em> refers to a group of three or more whose members include one<\/em> and another<\/em>.<\/p>\n The sticklers reject The twins told one another everything<\/em> because it means that one twin told \u201canother twin\u201d everything. To the sticklers, \u201canother twin\u201d means the impossible: three (or more) twins.<\/p>\n The trouble with the rule is that each other <\/em>and one another<\/em> were already long-established idioms in the eighteenth century, and many idioms fall apart under this sort of tortured scrutiny\u2014try analyzing as it were\u00a0<\/em>or by and large <\/em>sometime.<\/p>\n Whether some people like it or not, each other <\/em>and one another<\/em> are synonyms. So let\u2019s move on.<\/p>\n The possessive of each other<\/em> is each other\u2019s<\/em>, never\u00a0each others\u2019<\/em>. Although a lot of neophytes write each others\u2019<\/em>, the authorities agree unanimously that each other\u2019s<\/em> is the only acceptable option. Same with one another\u2019s<\/em>.<\/p>\n A thorny problem with each other\u2019s<\/em> and one another\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>is illustrated in the sentence that follows. Should we say The lawyer and the banker admired each other\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>car<\/strong><\/em> or admired each other\u2019s <\/em>cars<\/strong><\/em>?<\/p>\n The traditionalists are at odds here. In The Careful Writer <\/em>Theodore M. Bernstein claims that each other\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>is equivalent to their<\/em>. So Bernstein would say admired each other\u2019s cars<\/em>. But Bryan A. Garner leans toward the singular car<\/em>. In A<\/em> Dictionary of Modern American Usage<\/em> Garner says \u201cthe noun that follows is often plural\u00a0<each other\u2019s cars>, but the more logical construction is singular <each other\u2019s car>.\u201d<\/p>\n Did he say \u201clogical\u201d? When it comes to each other <\/em>and\u00a0one another<\/em>, logic is beside the point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There are still sticklers among us who see a distinct difference between each other and one another. They use each other when discussing two people or things, and one another when discussing more than two people or things. According to this system, the following sentences would both be correct: The twins told each other everything […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,12,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-definitions","category-effective-writing","category-possessives"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2015"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2015\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}