LANGUAGE CORNER
In, Up and On
Three Very Little Words
From the e-mail: Linda Leonhardt, a decorative painter in Great River, N.Y., reported a domestic dispute: "My husband and I were hotly discussing ‘between and in between' the other day, and we haven't settled a thing." "In" is clearly unnecessary in a phrase like "in between the pages," and in most standard writing is probably best omitted. And yet — the "in" doesn't do any real harm, and may just add a sense of precision or specificity lacking in an unaccompanied "between" (just as "in there, up there" and so on can be more informative than a mere "there"). And unlike the single word "between," "in between" sounds natural standing on its own: the fighters charged each other, and the referee was caught in between.
When a writer said "I called up" a source, Phil Dechman, a retired editor at the Independent in Grimsby, Ontario, was reminded of a conversation at a gathering of his parents and some of their friends when he was a child. "The use of ‘up' was denigrated," he wrote, "after which one sharpie raised his glass and offered the toast, ‘Bottoms!' " But in "call up," Mr. Dechman suggested, the "up" is always redundant. So it is, unless we're talking about military forces. "Call up" may fit in intentionally casual or conversational writing, though.
As Wendy Bryan, a Web specialist at the Columbia Journalism School, noted, "online" (one word) has become a noun and adjective for the Internet universe. But she was puzzled when she read about someone who "stood on line at the bank machine," and wondered, "Do I get behind those on line, or may I remain in line?" "On line" is apparently a regionalism; The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage declares: "Few besides New Yorkers speak of standing on line. Follow the usage of the rest of the English-speaking world: in line." The "on" version may be spreading, but "in" is still the unassailable choice.
