Can "of" be followed by "between"?

Question

I've encountered following phrase:

a vocabulary of between 10,000 and 15,000 words

Is this phrase correct? Can of be followed by between in this case?

I don't like answers (see below) which are based on graphs or are just a list of dictionary entries. If this site becomes a show off of skills in looking up Google sources, in my opinion it loses its appeal. — Paola, May 01 '12 at 16:23
Paola -- it's called evidence-based research. What would you prefer-- divine revelation? — Neil Coffey, May 01 '12 at 18:19
Many recent answers based on pains-taking research do seem to draw their eventual conclusion more from divine revelation than inference. — Kris, May 01 '12 at 18:31
@Paola: Graphs are fine, and entries are fine, so long as they support some larger, overarching insight, as opposed to being hastily assembled and posted by themselves. I think we're in agreement on that? — J.R., May 01 '12 at 20:03
@J.R. Absolutely. I do not mind graphs per se, although I prefer quotations to them; what I resent is the increasing presence of answers which do not provide any personal contribution. — Paola, May 01 '12 at 20:44
And @Neil Coffey, graphs actually remind me of divine revelation more than of personal reasoning. — Paola, May 01 '12 at 20:44

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:38

5

Yes, it is grammatical but a little informal. 'of between' looks unnatural because of the two adjacent prepositions. A more formal way of saying it would be:

a vocabulary ranging between 10,000 and 15,000

The informality of the original 'a vocabulary of between...' comes from treating the prepositional phrase 'between X and Y' as an object, as a range. How big is the vocabulary? Somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000. It is a vocabulary of that range, or

a vocabulary (of (between 10,000 and 15,000))

There are other instance of adjacent prepositions at the beginning of a prepositional phrase, but they seem to be of a different sort than this 'range' example. There's 'out of' and 'in to' and one could think of 'into' and 'upon' as the same sort. These examples seem to have evolved from reduplication for emphasis.

The phenomenon of a 'phrasal verb' followed by a prepositional phrase is also quite different. "She dashed off to her room.", where the 'off' 'dashed off' is part of the verb.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:38

Community

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answered May 01 '12 at 15:56

Mitch

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I think this answers the question well. We wouldn't blink at "a catch of 15 fish" so why should we flinch at "a catch of between 10 and 20 fish"? – J.R. May 01 '12 at 16:09
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Honestly, I think you're looking for problems that don't exist. It's quite usual and acceptable to say "of between...", "of up to...", "of around..." etc, where "of" takes another prepositional phrase expressing a range/limit. I don't quite see the need to single out "of between..." for special treatment/denouncement. – Neil Coffey May 01 '12 at 18:18
@NeilCoffey: Can "of" be followed by "between"? (That's the O.P.'s question, not mine; I think that's why it's being singled out so much.) That said, I agree with you, and I do like how this answer gave some extra discussion about consecutive prepositions in general. – J.R. May 01 '12 at 20:08
@NeilCoffey: The problem exists for the OP probably because it is very easy to see the almost universal 'rule' that a preposition is directly followed by a noun phrase. Except just looking at how people speak, it seems that that is too strict a labeling. – Mitch May 01 '12 at 20:42
@Mitch - sure if you posit that rule and assume it's true, you'll tie yourself in all sorts of knots. So why posit such a rule in the first place- it's very obviously not true. – Neil Coffey May 01 '12 at 21:54
Or, more sophisticatedly: it's obviously not true 'on the surface', because you readily get cases such as "he thought about [whether it was true]", "he arrived at [just after three o'clock]" etc. Maybe you have some level of analysis that interprets e.g. "just after three o'clock" as actually being a noun phrase. That's plausible, I guess. But there's obviously not a constraint in English that means prepositions have to take noun phrases in terms of how things appear 'on the surface'. – Neil Coffey May 01 '12 at 22:01
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@Mitch, my only comment is that "ranging between" implies that the actual number is variable but always falls between the limits specified, whereas the OP's original was an estimate of a single number rather than an expression of range. To be fair, I suppose a person's vocabulary is not quite fixed as words come and go from a person's recall and therefore does 'range' a bit, but probably not +/-2500 words. – Jim May 02 '12 at 00:45

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered May 01 '12 at 17:25

Perhaps the person asking the original question wonders whether "a vocabulary between 10,000 and 15,000 words" (omitting "of") is sufficient--or indeed preferable to "a vocabulary of between 10,000 and 15,000 words." I frequently see sentences that omit "of" in similar circumstances--for example, "Stores sell them at prices up to $1000," instead of "Stores sell them at prices of up to $1000."

If that's the issue, I would say that including "of" is better than omitting it, on the theory that making an implied preposition explicit is better than requiring readers to infer it.

score 2 · Answer 3 · edited May 01 '12 at 17:39

2

"... vocabulary of between ..." has 3,850 hits on Google Books. So, we can say that the phrase is correct.

Furthermore, analogous 'structures' (of followed by between) have many hits on Google Books:

"... time of between ..."; 55,700 hits (These periodicities ranged between .022 and .10 Hz, which corresponds to a cycle time of between 45 and 10 seconds), Time and human cognition: a life-span perspective;
"... length of between ..."; 63,200 hits (...having an average length of between 70 and 135 mm.), Industrial Applications of Natural Fibres: Structure, Properties ...;
"... area of between ..."; 75,700 hits (... said spring metal wires having a silhouette area of between about 17% a '. about 75% of the area of said assembly, the em, ty space between the coated wires occupying from about 2% to about 75 % of the area of the assembly), Official gazette of the United States Patent Office: Patents: Volume 927;
"... volume of between ..."; 33,000 hits (Depending upon the manufacturer, the engine had a swept volume of between 2.9 and 3 .5 litres ...), The encyclopedia of weapons of World War II.

The following references are referred to your specific case (vocabulary of between):

Grammar and writing - Page 10, Rebecca Stott, Peter Chapman [→]
"... speakers and writers we have already acquired the following: • a vocabulary of between 40000 and 50000 words and an ability to understand about half as many again • at least a thousand aspects of grammatical construction, ..."

The Royal Society of Medicine encyclopedia of children's health - Page 203, Robert Youngson, Royal Society of Medicine (Great Britain) [→]
"The average toddler of 18 months has a vocabulary of between 20 and 50 words, depending ..."

English Language and Literary Criticism - Page 117, A.s. Kharbe [→]
"A Pidgin is characterized by a small vocabulary of between a few hundred and a thousand ..."

edited May 01 '12 at 17:39

Paola

3,129

answered May 01 '12 at 15:10

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See my comment to the accepted answer. Your inference is also incorrect, but I notice you lopped off the unpleasant early part of the line graph, the one that produced no result at all. This is called cherry-picking in statistics, and it's a bad thing. – Robusto May 01 '12 at 15:24
@Robusto - You was right, so I have edited my answer. – May 01 '12 at 15:33
Please edit your answer to include a link to the ngrams that produced this graph. – James Waldby - jwpat7 May 01 '12 at 15:34
Can you give the link to ngrams that produced this graph? (so it is reproducible). Also, why did you cut off before 1960? Also, I'm not sure of the point of the graph, can you state it? – Mitch May 01 '12 at 15:35
@Mitch - http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=vocabulary+of+between&year_start=1960&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=10 - but as Robusto said I have removed my graph – May 01 '12 at 15:37
@jwpat7 - http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=vocabulary+of+between&year_start=1960&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=10 - but as Robusto said I have removed my graph – May 01 '12 at 15:38
@Robusto, I'm loving your comments on this question, and I wouldn't dare try to post an Ngram on this thread with you as the vigilant watchdog :^) That said, I want to point out that lopping off the first part of a graph isn't necessarily "cherry picking." Had Carlo said something like, "Yes, this has always been considered correct," and then supported that assertion with this graph, that would be cherry picking. But if the inference is, "This has been in use for at least 50 years" (which I think is much closer to what he was saying), then there's nothing wrong with cropping the flatline. – J.R. May 01 '12 at 15:42
@J.R. ...but Carlo didn't say anything at all. Saying something is better. Modifying from the default implies intention, and it's better to be open about the intention. – Mitch May 01 '12 at 15:47
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Why -1 on my edited answer? Please, could the downvoter explain. – May 01 '12 at 15:50
@Mitch: I agree, I think a clarification would have been better than removing the graph. (NOT my downvote, btw...) – J.R. May 01 '12 at 15:54
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@Carlo_R. probably you got it because there of the ngram you had there before, or because you are giving no explanation, or maybe because there are all sorts of reasons a trigram could appear many times in ngrams only one of them being 'it is a grammatical'. – Mitch May 01 '12 at 16:00
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@Carlo_R.: what is 'Pagina'? I'm guessing it is 'page' in Italian. So you're using some kind of Italian search engine? That might trip you up in your quotes...you might be cut and pasting things that won't be understood by many users here. Also, If you're cut and pasting, you probably want to give the link to the original, too. – Mitch May 01 '12 at 16:14
@Mitch: I'd hate to see what my smart phone's autocorrect would do with "Pagina" – J.R. May 01 '12 at 16:18
@Mitch - I have added the links. Yes, pagina=page (from Latin pagina) – May 01 '12 at 16:26
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@Carlo_R. Thanks for the links. But what are you trying to say by these examples? They seem to be from a search for grammar and 'vocabulary of between' (there's nothing special about 'vocabulary' but it does help with specificity) but 3 examples don't tell me it's right or meaningful or anything. LLook at the context (not the titles) in a google books search for in of to. Obviously a nongrammatical sequence, but many examples. – Mitch May 01 '12 at 17:00
@Mitch - Yes, you are right - I have added time/length/area/volume of between. – May 01 '12 at 17:22
@Carlo_R.: your new examples are more compelling (just by volume) but you didn't address my points at all. Displaying google hits doesn't convince without an explanation. – Mitch May 01 '12 at 17:28
@Mitch - I have certainly done my best. However, I know, your answer is better than mine: +1 for you from me. Add my +1 you go up to +4 now. – May 01 '12 at 17:36
@Mitch: Your in of to search was both funny and interesting. Much of it coincidental gibberish, but many references to bona fide run-on prepositions, too – most of which containing the words law, legal, or judicial in their titles. All that reminded me of Barrie England's excellent opening comment on this question yesterday... – J.R. May 01 '12 at 18:13

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered May 01 '12 at 17:54

I don't see a problem. It conveys a coherent idea.

Suppose the writer said, "He has a vocabularly of 10,000 words." That would certainly be a perfectly valid sentence. So the writer wants to indicate a range. He writes, "... a vocabularly of between 10,000 and 15,000 words".

I don't think there's any rule that you can't have two prepositions in a row. (Or if there is, it should be ignored.) How about, "The plane fell FROM ABOVE the clouds"? Where did it fall from? It fell from a place above the clouds.

"I ran TO NEAR exhaustion." I didn't run to exhaustion, but to a state near it.

Etc.

Dan D. · Answer 5 · 2012-05-01T15:33:40.690

-3

Yes, it is correct usage.

Here is the Google Ngram graph for of between for 1700-2008:

edited May 01 '12 at 15:33

answered May 01 '12 at 15:25

Dan D.

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Closer, but still not proof of anything. Also, if you use a chart it must be in support of a contention. What is yours? – Robusto May 01 '12 at 15:27
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This answer is not helpful in answering the question. The fact that there is some incidence of the phrase "of between" (taken as is, without any other context) in the corpus of books used by Google for the N-gram viewer has no obvious significance to me. Do be aware that the N-gram viewer assumptions state that results are meaningful for the interval 1800-2000 only. Also, there is no way of knowing whether the y-axis values are of sufficient magnitude to infer anything or not. – Ellie Kesselman May 26 '12 at 12:27

Can "of" be followed by "between"?

5 Answers5