Comments on: Among vs. Amongst

By: Dartanjan

Dartanjan — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 22:24:23 +0000

the “st” in amongst could suggest the superlative. We get words like ‘good’,'better’,and ‘beST’ from Dutch, the English language’s closest relative. -er and -st are the regular suffixes used. This seems in line with the difference between “a god among men” and “a god amongst men” (as well as the other examples given above). amongst does seem to suggest a level above, or an extra separation.
In other words- Amongst refers to object A next to or within object B BUT, not of the same group as B.

Among refers to object A next to or wthin object B AND part of the same group.

this does however mean that in the text that i was writing which brought me here, I was using the wrong word.

By: Chedda

Chedda — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 07:07:52 +0000

Great site!
I completely disagree with those who say that amongst is archaic. Just because it isn’t in your vocabulary doesn’t mean it’s out of use!
I can understand the view that ‘among’ and ‘amongst’ are interchangeable, at least to a degree that arguing the matter is a bit pedantic, as several people have said. However, when considering the decline of grammar and spelling in this country, perhaps it isn’t pedantry to argue such points. Personally, I would use the words interchangeable in spoken English due to laziness, but if I were writing, I would take more care to use the right one, because I do think there is a slight technical difference, as several people above have given examples to demonstrate perfectly.
If we said there were ‘problems among individuals’ I would take this to mean that there were problems between or within a group of individuals. To say ‘amongst individuals’ would, to me, indicate the problems are unattached to those individuals and is more an indication of proximity, which doesn’t make sense, since problems aren’t a physical thing.

Among the teachers, there were several males  there are some teachers, some of which are males.
Amongst the teachers, there were several males  there are some teachers, and dispersed between them are some males.
I don’t know if there’s a hard and fast rule, but it seems pretty clear that there’s a slight difference, even if only in a number of limited cases. I read somewhere that it’s related to whether the sentence is active or passive, and whether you are using singular or plural. I have also read that even though it sometimes seems like a distinction can be made, there is in fact not one, and they are always interchangeable, but I disagree because examples can clearly be found which are contrary to this.

By: Max

Max — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 09:21:57 +0000

I’d rather use among\amongst depending on the sounding of whole sentence. I mean I’d use the one that sounds better in a particular case.

By: KeithL

KeithL — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 23:30:43 +0000

I could see Irene amongst the crowd
I could not see Irene among the crowd

There is a traitor amongst us
There is no traitor among us

By: preeti

preeti — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 17:06:43 +0000

I definitely agree to the above arguments put in favour or against …but if anyone could clarify …whether the students should be awarded marks for using ‘among’ in place of ‘amongst’ in grammar paper?