"On the equivalence of A and B" or "between A and B"

Question

I am writing an academic paper with a choice of titles:

On the equivalence of A and B

On the equivalence between A and B

or

On the equivalence of A, B and C

On the equivalence between A, B and C

On the equivalence among A, B and C

where A,B,C are some scientific or math notions.

Should I use of or between or among? Which case is more correct or suitable?

Let's stick with two, OK? The first two suggest a different emphasis. (1) is a demonstration that A and B are equivalent, while (2) is a discussion about the nature of the equivalence, and perhaps its evolution, variation, and implications. — John Lawler, Jul 05 '14 at 19:50
Another part of the answer is that you should use between when talking about two things, and among for three or more. — Scott - Слава Україні, Jul 05 '14 at 20:54
@Scott: I do not think you can say that as a definitive rule. See an earlier question — Henry, Jul 05 '14 at 22:13
@Scott that rule smells like prescriptivist nonsense. These days they're probably effectively synonymous and I see no reason to make up rules for them. — curiousdannii, Jul 06 '14 at 02:56

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 23 '14 at 21:09

Grammatically and semantically, both options seem correct. Statistically, you're better off going with "of A and B".

A quick search on Google Scholar shows there are 141,000 occurrences of "equivalence of * and" and 59,600 occurrences of "equivalence between * and."

"Of" is roughly* 2.38 times more likely to be used in academic writing.

[* There is a fair amount of extrapolation since Google Scholar doesn't index the entire body of research out there, but there is no reason to assume it isn't a representative sample. ]

@ Guybrush Threepwood, thanks for the comment, +1. – wonderich Jul 24 '14 at 15:09 — wonderich, Jul 24 '14 at 15:09

"On the equivalence of A and B" or "between A and B"

1 Answers1