Re: either和both是同義字嗎?

Posted by Tim Luo on 2007/9/26 0:19:21

They are different words. Many ideas can be expressed using different word combinations. For example, we can say "everybody likes him" is similar to "they like him" as everybody refers to all the people.

In the examples given, "Either of your parents can attend the PTA meeting." can be satisfied even only one of the parents attends the PTA meeting. But in "Both of your parents can attend the PTA meeting.", it usually implies that "both parents" attend the PTA meeting. The tricky part in the two sentences is the word "can". If "can" is omitted, you can definitely see the difference.

Compare

Either of your parents attended the PTA meeting.

with

Both of your parents attended the PTA meeting.

and you should get the picture.

Tim