单词辨析 - between 和 among的区别

来自American Heritage Dictionary

According to a widely repeated but unjustified tradition,“between is used for two, and among for more than two.” It is true that between is the only choice when exactly two entities are specified: the choice between (not among ) good and evil, the rivalry between (not among ) Great Britain and France.
根据重复多次但没什么根据的传统看法，“between 用于两者之间，而 among 用于二者以上。” 当只提到两个实体时，between 确实是唯一的选择： the choice between （而不用 among ） good and evil（善与恶之间的选择），the rivalry between （不用 among ） Great Britain and France（英法间的对抗）。

When more than two entities are involved, however, or when the number of entities is unspecified, the choice of one or the other word depends on the intended sense. Between is used when the entities are considered as distinct individuals; among, when they are considered as a mass or collectivity. Thus in the sentence The bomb landed between the houses, the houses are seen as points that define the boundaries of the area of impact (so that we presume that none of the individual houses was hit). InThe bomb landed among the houses, the area of impact is considered to be the general location of the houses, taken together (in which case it is left open whether any houses were hit).
当牵涉到两个以上实体时，如果实体的数目不确定，选择其中之一则取决于倾向性。当实体被看作不同的个体时用between ； 当其被看作整体或集合时用among 。 因此在句子The bomb landed between the houses 中，房屋被看作一个限定了中弹地区的界限（ 所以我们假设一所所单独的房子未被击中）。在The bomb landed among the houses 中，被中弹地区被看作是房屋的整体地区（ 在这种情形下房屋是否被击中并未说明）。

By the same token, we may speak of a series of wars between the Greek cities, which suggests that each city was an independent belligerent, or ofa series of wars among the Greek cities, which allows as well the possibility that the belligerents were shifting alliances of cities. For this reason, among is most appropriate to indicate inclusion in a group.

同样的表示法，我们可以说a series of wars between the Greek cities， 表示每个城市是独立的参战者，我们也可以说a series of wars among the Greek cities， 表示存在某些城市做为联合参战者的可能性。 因此，among 最适合表示包括在一群成一组人之内：There is a spy among you (this last is arguably appropriate even when there are only two addressees;