between me and my friends

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

Hi,

‘It’s between me and my friends.’

Is ‘between’ correctly used here?
Or should I use ‘among’ instead?

Thanks.

2

‘Between’ is correct. ‘Among’ would sound odd there.

3

between is good, but in theory you should put your friends first… “it’s between my friends and me.” English is such a polite language.

4

Friends + me could be any number of persons but the question here is placed between two parties or groups: my friends (G1) and me (G2). Therefore, between is the correct and senseful choice. Furthermore, as Thredder pointed out, between my friends and me would be far more stable and polite for well-educated speakers, though some people do say “between me and X”, especially among teenages or, more likely, among kids.

5

“It has nothing to do with you. It’s between me and my friends!”

  • In the context of a short retort such as the above, I’d be willing to bet that ‘me’ comes before ‘friends/family’, etc. almost every time.
6

“It has nothing to do with you. It’s between me and my friends!” => Doesn’t it sound like kids’, as I said? :slight_smile:

7

I know some very old ‘kids’! :wink:

(Yes, it does. I was just adding clarification that it isn’t uncommon for native English speakers to order it like that.)

8

And I know many immature adults! :slight_smile:

9

I don’t! :stuck_out_tongue:

10

Are your profession related to mathematics, James? Just curious. ;p

11

The rule is between for 2 things and among for more than two. But, it depends on how you want to think about this. If you are saying that something (say, a secret) is between you and your friends (whereas you are a single entity (yourself) and they are a single entity – a group (of friends)) then you may use between. But, if you are thinking of them individually (as in each of you will keep the secret) then among me and my friends (with friends being an unspecified number of people bringing (with yourself) the total number to more than two).

12

More or less, yes, Ricky. Mathematics plays an indispensable role to help me carry out my job.

13

James, is IT a line of work which you are in?

14

More or less, yes, E2e4. One of our ongoing projects is introduce or apply some mathematical models or methods into computerized linguistic analysis (English).