What's the Difference?

The language in which I have arbitrarily chosen to write this piece is one of the most complex ones on the planet, even if it is not nearly as awkward as those ancient tongues that have died a well-deserved death. I'm talking about Latin, people.

Very few of us who imagine ourselves to be literate in it can write an entire page of English without at least running into some area of doubt, if not actually getting something outright wrong. One of the most common ways in which we trip ourselves up is our confusion between two similar or similar-looking words. What I propose to do in this and maybe, if my brief attention-span does not direct me elsewhere, other essays, is to examine some of these potentially perplexing groupings to determine what differences lie among them. Let's start off with a really basic one.

Between and Among

Some of the differences we encounter will be matters of style in common usage, while others, like this set, are governed strictly by the rules of grammar.

For purposes of comparison, one thing and another thing are always between each other. For example, the sentence, "I'm having a hard time choosing between the chicken and the shrimp," is entirely correct. The sentence, "I'm having a hard time choosing between the chicken, the shrimp and the gravel," is not, regardless of your views on chicken as a menu item.

Here is the rule: when three or more items are in the mix, you do not use "between." Instead, you use "among." Even if a majority of people ignore the rule in their spoken English, that is still the rule. For that matter, a large number of people will say, "Between you and I..." when the correct phrase is, "Between you and me." Consider that last bit an extra gift from your narrator. Merry Next Christmas.

I have little doubt that a sizable number of you (Note, please, the author's wild flight of fancy that a "sizable number" of people have even bothered to glance at this piece.) may feel insulted to the point of dueling over the notion that such a thing needs to be pointed out to you at all. Very well, our next comparison will be far more subtle, yet, if I play my cards right, I just may manage to insult your intelligence yet even more.

Okay and O.K.

What, you mean there is a difference? Yes, there is. This time we are talking about a difference of style, rather than grammar. It is subtle, but you would probably be better served if you kept it in mind whenever you had occasion to use either of these expressions.

When I finished the draft for my vastly under-appreciated masterpiece, Shaggy Dogs: A Collection of Not-So-Short Stories, one of the billions upon billions of things my very excellent editor pointed out to me was that I should be consistent in my use of this expression. Choose one or the other, she said, and stay with it throughout the book...which I did.

Much later, well after the book had gone to press, it occurred to me that I probably should not have stayed with the same expression throughout the entire manuscript. There are differences, you know.

First, let us look at the expression, "O.K." If you want a dubious explanation of its derivation-and I cannot imagine for a moment why you would not-you could avail yourself of an ancient Associated Content article, titled Ask Mr. Tom 12 . The bit about the expression's origin is the third of three questions answered in that article. If you have no capacity for any more than one item of enlightenment at a time, you may feel free to skip to page three, where the answer begins at the bottom.

Having wasted, that is to say, invested your time in that exercise, you get the distinct impression that "O.K." refers to something the speaker approves of, as in "Tom is an O.K. guy."

Actually, the aforementioned answer was not all that far from the truth about the expression's origin. When Martin Van Buren made his bid to succeed Andrew Jackson as the next president (and perhaps get his portrait on the twenty-one-dollar bill, when issued), he had a formidable squad of party hacks from his upstate New York home working quite effectively to get him the Democratic Party nomination. These organizers worked out of an organization called Old Kinderhook, which was the upstate version of Tammany Hall in New York City. They placed a high premium of loyalty, and wished only to associate with those whom they knew as being "Old Kinderhook." That is how we arrived at "O.K." No, seriously, that is the straight skinny.

As we all should know, though, the expression has come to mean more than a mark of approval. And, when you are using it otherwise, as in, "Okay, who cut the cheese?" it does not mean you are at all in favor of mutilating cheese. In such instances, it is best to spell the word out phonetically, as in the above example, so as to distance its use from the sole purpose of approval. A small difference, to be sure, but one that will serve to class up your prose yet even more.

That should wrap it up for this session. Your narrator will try to return with more dubious differences in the near future. Meanwhile, if you have any questions about confusing sets of words and their differences, feel free to speak up. I will attempt to answer your question, even if the answer turns out to be that there is no difference, as in the case of "Sarah Palin" and "idiot."

Sources

AmericanHeritage.com

Ask Mr. Tom

Caesar's Gallic Wars