'each other's country' vs.'each other's countries'
Roger
British English?
(1) (He) 'wanted to suggest to the RRG that it and the BBC should
regularly grant uncensored airtime to representatives of each other's
country'.
(2) (He) 'wanted to suggest to the RRG that it and the BBC should
regularly grant uncensored airtime to representatives of each other's
countries'.
I believe that the first version sounds more English than the second .
Secondly, and more analytically, I believe that the first example is
correct because the RRG and the BBC each represent only one country,
and that 'each' organisation, when thinking of its foreign
counterpart,would regard it is as belonging to a single country.
Therefore, 'countries' would only be correct if the RRG and the BBC
each represented more than one country (as in 'John and Bob regularly
visited each other's homes", if John and Bob each had more than one
home, but "each other's home" if each of them lived in only one
place.
Don Phillipson
news:cad68cbd-5fe6-4b25...@s1g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> Which of the following do you consider to be the most appropriate in
> British English?
>
> (1) (He) 'wanted to suggest to the RRG that it and the BBC should
> regularly grant uncensored airtime to representatives of each other's
> country'.
>
> (2) (He) 'wanted to suggest to the RRG that it and the BBC should
> regularly grant uncensored airtime to representatives of each other's
> countries'.
>
> I believe that the first version sounds more English than the second .
> Secondly, and more analytically, I believe that the first example is
> correct because the RRG and the BBC each represent only one country . . .
1. "Air time" (two words) seems more appropriate in British English
than the single word "airtime."
2. The RRG (Reichsrundfunk Gesellschaft) and BBC represent
countries only in a metaphorical sense: both were statute-based
organisations with legal powers (cf. censorship.) The sentence
does not need to say they represented anything. It may be
rephrased: " . . . suggest the two national broadcasters allot
air time to each other."
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
Cece
In American English, it would be 'each other's countries." Why?
Because the discussion is of more than one country. (Same for "each
other's homes.") "Each other's" is always written as a singular. How
many otters there are, and how many items are owned/claimed/whatever
by each of those "others" doesn't matter in the least. "Each other's
[noun]s." It doesn't make sense? Call it an idiom.
Roger
>
It may be an American idiom but I'm pretty sure that the
'traditional'' British way
of expressing this would be to say "each other's country". This is
because
'each' person is looking at the "other's" country and, whether it's
'A' looking at 'B'
or 'B' looking at 'A', the 'other' is living in one country, not two.
Apart from being
logical from the point of view of perspective, "each other's" country
sounds
better to me.Perhaps that's because I'm over sixty and I'm not keeping
pace with
recent developments in the language. What do other Brits think?