Between and among

[nq:1]Which one is correct? Alternate between three things Alternate among three things[/nq]
Neither: alternate between two things.

John Briggs

[nq:1]Which one is correct? Alternate between three things Alternate among three things[/nq]
You have posted this query separately to three newsgroups that I know of. That's considered a no-no by some people. It's said to be wasteful of Internet resources compared with crossposting.
On the other hand, given that some spam filters reject crosspostings to a number of groups greater than some

[nq:2]Which one is correct? Alternate between three things Alternate among three things[/nq]
[nq:1]You have posted this query separately to three newsgroups that I know of. That's considered a no-no by some people. ... a number of groups greater than some specified number, I suppose it's a way to sneak around that potential obstacle.[/nq]
Internet resources are cheap, but our time isn't.

[nq:1]Internet resources are cheap, but our time isn't.[/nq]
Crossposting instead of separate posting would have saved at least my time. When a message is crossposted, my
newsreader, Agent, displays it in only one of the
newsgroups. I found it in three because it was separately posted in each.
I took the time to read the extra two to see if they were different from the first one. T

At 11:03:30 on Wed, 2 Jul 2008, Paul (Email Removed) wrote in (Email Removed):
[nq:1]Well, this is the scenario if you are a regular at a few different language news groups. What if one ... to different news groups then stand vindicated? Can successive postings done out of necessity be treated differently from cross postings?[/nq]
Rather than create a new topic in such circumstances, it is

At 07:19:35 on Thu, 3 Jul 2008, Woody Wordpecker (Email Removed) wrote in (Email Removed):
[nq:1]It also needs to be said that we wouldn't use "alternate" for "alternative" in all cases. For example, commonly heard phrases are "alternative medicine" and "alternative lifestyle". I wouldn't expect to hear an American substitute "alternate" in those phrases.[/nq]
And yet, when The Monkees wer

[nq:2]It also needs to be said that we wouldn't use ... expect to hear an American substitute "alternate" in those phrases.[/nq]
[nq:1]And yet, when The Monkees were told that they could not call their latest record "Randy Scouse Git", it became "Alternate Title".[/nq]
Reminds me of a musical group we used to hear about years ago. I imagine a group sitting around trying to dream up a name

At 22:23:12 on Thu, 3 Jul 2008, Tony Mountifield
(Email Removed) wrote in :
[nq:2]Let me try again: if a pipe smoker has three pipes, that smoker can alternate among them.[/nq]
[nq:1]If I were he (not that I would ever smoke a pipe), I could rotate around/among them, but not alternate among/between them.[/nq]
When there are only two items, "alternate" tells us that the sequence is

At 14:26:44 on Fri, 4 Jul 2008, {R} (Email Removed) wrote in (Email Removed):
[nq:1]I am born and bred, an english man, and I speak only as a native english speaker.[/nq]
"But in spite of all temptations
To belong to other nations,
He remains an Englishman -
He remains an Englishman!"
However, Richard, I suspect that your vocabulary is not necessarily that of the man on the

[nq:2]I am born and bred, an english man, and I speak only as a native english speaker.[/nq]
[nq:1]"But in spite of all temptations To belong to other nations, He remains an Englishman - He remains an Englishman!" However, Richard, I suspect that your vocabulary is not necessarily that of the man on the Clapham Omnibus... ;-}[/nq]
Are there any omnibuses in Clapham these days?
REgards,