betwixt

[sardith]

Ok, I'll admit I was caught up in the William and Kate nuptials last week, but while most of my friends were keeping score on all the fashions, I was loving this one word that kept popping up during the ceremony: betwixt

I understand it is used in the U.S. as well, but they use it so grandly in the U.K.

Is it completely interchangeable with between?

Really doesn't matter. I think I shall try to bring it back into prominence, though I think that Californians might be too independent to budge!

Oh well,
Sardith

[bnjtokyo]

The British dictionaries label it "archaic." It is defined as meaning "between" and appears to be frozen in place in the idiom "betwixt and between."

I agree that it is a nice word. Maybe, just betwixt you and me, we can use it more often.

[sardith]

It's a deal, bnjtokyo!

But, just betwixt you and me, how're you doing over there betwixt all of the aftershocks and Techtonic plate settling?

Sardith

[Slava]

Aye, this word is almost exclusively met in the phrase betwixt and between. Though, as sardith uses it, it works.

I can see other such ways to use it in a modern sense, but not as a universal replacement for between. I just can't see saying something like, "My house is on the left, betwixt Oak and Maxwell."

[sardith]

It just sounds so wonderful tripping off the British tongue, though.

I guess I'll just wait for the next Royal wedding!

Sardith

p.s. The one saying I think would be improved:
'caught betwixt a rock and a hard place'

[Stargzer]

...
p.s. The one saying I think would be improved:
'caught betwixt a rock and a hard place'

During their war many years ago, one local Baltimore DJ said that Iran was a country caught between Iraq and a hard place ...