Between: they stood between me as if ...

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Marius Hancu - 15 Jan 2004 23:16 GMT

Hello:

Doesn't "between" require two elements?

------
They seemed to take no notice of me; I don't suppose that I was even
addressed by one of them. But, as long as one or the other, or all
three of them were there, they stood BETWEEN me as if, I being the
titular possessor of the corpse, had a right to be present at their
conferences. Then they all went away and I was left alone for a long
time.
[The Good Soldier, by Ford Madox Ford, Ch. V, Part III, ch.I, p. 103]
------

I would have understood:
" ... they stood BETWEEN me and the rest of them ... "

Just perhaps, did "between" ever have the meaning of "beside"?
Couldn't confirm this in my dictionaries ....

Thank you for any clarifications.

Marius Hancu

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Mike Bandy - 17 Jan 2004 02:53 GMT

>Doesn't "between" require two elements?

...

Yes. For example, your nose is between your two eyes. People
sometimes say, "Betwixt and between." Since "betwixt" means
"between," it's like saying, "between-between," or "so-so."

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Mike Bandy

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Christopher Green - 17 Jan 2004 07:36 GMT

> Hello:
>
[quoted text clipped - 19 lines]
>
> Marius Hancu

I think he meant something like "around me": "they stood around me",
or "they stood with me between them".

Ford Madox Ford can be bewildering even to people whose first language
is English. There are many passages such as this where you cannot
deduce meaning by careful parsing and looking closely at the usual
definition of words; you have to give weight to the context and thrust
of what he is saying.
You have picked a challenging and rewarding author to study.

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Chris Green

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Marius Hancu - 17 Jan 2004 11:38 GMT

> > Doesn't "between" require two elements?
> >
[quoted text clipped - 16 lines]
> I think he meant something like "around me": "they stood around me",
> or "they stood with me between them".

Or, perhaps, "beside me", which is what I initially assumed.

> Ford Madox Ford can be bewildering even to people whose first language
> is English. There are many passages such as this where you cannot
> deduce meaning by careful parsing and looking closely at the usual
> definition of words; you have to give weight to the context and thrust
> of what he is saying.
> You have picked a challenging and rewarding author to study.

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, I am unhappy I had to read this novel on a book with relatively
narrow page margins, thus there wasn't enough space for my notes:-)

However, for me at least, the difficulty with Ford does not reside in the
language, but in his multiple and complex insights he offers to his
characters. There's no single view on any of them, and of course many
are contradictory.

Reading him after Henry James (Portrait of a Lady), I think he goes
deeper than James in exploring early education, parents and religion
in motivating people. And he of course goes much farther than James in
terms of being more specific about the sexual connotations of a
relationship, which is quite natural with him writing 34 years later.

But I definitely like both very much.

Marius Hancu

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Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2004

Between: they stood between me as if ...