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The following sentences are written in two different ways:

Anne was upset, and I had no idea why. I and Hillary tried to raise her spirits, but she didn't want to talk to us both.

Anne was upset, and I had no idea why. I and Hillary tried to raise her spirits, but she didn't want to talk to us.

These also:

They both taught at Harvard and then at Yale; they both loved classical music, and also “Graceland,” the landmark 1986 Afropop album by Paul Simon. [Original]

They taught at Harvard and then at Yale; they loved classical music, and also “Graceland,” the landmark 1986 Afropop album by Paul Simon. [edited]

When should I end or use "They(them)/we(us)/you + both" or "They(them)/we(us)/you" in a sentence? I have the feeling that "both" acts as an emphasizer, but I'm not sure.

Thank you :)

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    Did you write the example sentences? if not, what is the source, please?
    – David Siegel
    Commented Nov 17, 2022 at 0:23
  • 3
    The sentences were written in different ways!
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Nov 17, 2022 at 9:43
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    Side note, it should be "Hillary and I"
    – MJD
    Commented Nov 17, 2022 at 13:31
  • 2
    @MJD That's certainly more common, and usually more natural, but I don't think it's any sort of 'rule' as it were really? Sometimes emphasises differently, especially in speech: 'I -- and Hilary! -- tried ...' for example.
    – OJFord
    Commented Nov 18, 2022 at 11:27
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    Very often, yes, it's merely an emphasiser. "Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen both went to the same school" has exactly the same meaning, just slightly different emphasis, without the "both", and both forms are entirely natural and colloquial.
    – Michael Kay
    Commented Nov 18, 2022 at 13:22

4 Answers 4

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In affirmative sentences, like the second set, "both" doesn't change the meaning, but acts to emphasize things they have in common.

However, in negative sentences, like your first set of examples, "not both" means "one or the other, or neither, but not both".

  1. ... she didn't want to talk to us both.

This means she only wanted to talk to one of us, or maybe neither of us, but not both of us.

  1. ... she didn't want to talk to us.

This is a natural way to say she didn't want to talk to either of us, which is probably your intended meaning.

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  • 2
    I would say that the "not both" form is ambiguous. It might mean "one but not both" or it might mean "neither". This will depend on context, and in some cases either possibility will be valid/
    – David Siegel
    Commented Nov 17, 2022 at 17:06
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    For the negative sentence, "... didn't want to talk to us together" would be a great way to definitively indicate one possible interpretation, i.e. that that talking one-to-one with either of you was okay, but all three at the same time wasn't. As to whether or not this was the intended meaning, it's not clear.
    – JonathanZ
    Commented Nov 17, 2022 at 17:16
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(1A) Anne was upset, and I had no idea why. I and Hillary tried to raise her spirits, but she didn't want to talk to us both.

This is awkward, if not wrong. Better would be the given form:

(1B) Anne was upset, and I had no idea why. I and Hillary tried to raise her spirits, but she didn't want to talk to us.

or the alternative

(1C) Anne was upset, and I had no idea why. I and Hillary tried to raise her spirits, but she didn't want to talk to either of us.

If the writer actually means that Anne would talk to the two separately, but not together (which is a possible but not too likely reading of (1A)) then a better form would be:

(1D) Anne was upset, and I had no idea why. I and Hillary tried to raise her spirits, but she didn't want to talk to both of us together.

The sentence:

(2A) They both taught at Harvard and then at Yale; they both loved classical music, and also “Graceland,” the landmark 1986 Afropop album by Paul Simon.

uses "both" correctly and naturally. The sentence (2A) emphasizes the commonality between the two people being described. The alternaAte:

(2B) They taught at Harvard and then at Yale; they loved classical music, and also “Graceland,” the landmark 1986 Afropop album by Paul Simon.

carries much the same meaning, but with significantly less emphasis on the common points of the two people.

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  • I'm sorry, but it's not very clear to me. Let's go point by point: 1- Is the 1A sentence wrong as a whole or because of the use of "us both"? If it's because of "us both", is it a matter of preference? 2- When we want to emphasize the similarity between two people, the best choice will always be (They(them)/we(us)/you + both)?
    – Portugueseporto
    Commented Nov 17, 2022 at 0:57
  • Saying "Both taught at Harvard and then at Yale ..." is also OK. "They both" seems redundant to me in this context. "Both" by itself means the same thing, and carries the same emphasis.
    – Wastrel
    Commented Nov 17, 2022 at 15:23
  • @Portugueseporto I said sentence 1Ais awkward, I wont absolutely say it is wrong.Yews, this is due to the "us both" construction. I don't know if any clear rule covering this case, and in other uses "us both" may be natural. The use of "both" is a common way to emphasize similarity between two people. I wouldn't say it was always the best way, but it is often a good way, at least.
    – David Siegel
    Commented Nov 17, 2022 at 16:57
  • @Wastrel I would say that "Both taught at X" is short for either "Both of them taught at X" or "They both taught at X" But one may surely use the shorter form with much the same meaning.
    – David Siegel
    Commented Nov 17, 2022 at 17:02
  • The use of "I and Hillary" instead of "Hillary and I" is also jarring. First-person pronouns always come last in a list.
    – Hellion
    Commented Nov 17, 2022 at 18:38
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Normally, adding 'both' emphasizes that this is a thing happening separately to two people. For example:

A) "Roth and Harris worked on DNA sampling techniques in the 1990s."
B) "Roth and Harris both worked on DNA sampling techniques in the 1990s."

Sentence A is ambiguous as to whether Roth and Harris were working on it together or independently, but usually if it's written like that it's saying they were partners on the project. Sentence B is unambiguously saying that they were working independently on the same kind of thing.

In your second example, the repetition of "they both" tells us that these are two people doing each of these things on their own, but following similar paths through life. We're drawing a comparison between two people and highlighting the ways they are the same. Removing the 'both' makes it kind of sound like they were doing those things together, as friends or partners.

In the first example, 'both' doesn't quite work. "She didn't want to talk to us both" is an odd phrase that sounds slightly wrong. It should say "she didn't want to talk to either of us" if you mean to say she's refusing contact from both people independently, or "she didn't want to talk to us together" if she's willing to talk to one of you but doesn't want to have both of you present at the same time. If you approached her together and she didn't want to talk at all, then "she didn't want to talk to us" is the correct way to say that.

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    I only agree with your reasoning if both sentences included the word "independently" before "worked". In that case, "Roth and Harris independently worked..." is ambiguous on whether Roth and Harris worked as a group independent of other groups, or as individuals. "Roth and Harris both independently worked..." implies that Roth and Harris worked as individuals. Without "independently", both sentences effectively mean the same thing.
    – Cantalouping
    Commented Nov 18, 2022 at 1:22
  • Agree with Cantalouping. As another example of the same form, if I said "Peter Schmeichel and Denis Irwin both played for Man Utd in the 1990s", it feels like a reach to understand it as that they never played in the same match together.
    – anotherdave
    Commented Nov 18, 2022 at 11:12
  • Sure, but you're not doing that though the grammar, you're doing it by specifying a quite small group that we as readers understand the context of. We know that two people on a sports team at the same time probably actually played together, but only because we know what football is. If you changed that to, say, "both worked for General Motors in the 1990s", then it doesn't instantly read that they worked with each other.
    – Darth Pseudonym
    Commented Nov 18, 2022 at 15:00
  • and honestly I'd argue that the inclusion of 'both' in the Manchester United example does make it read as the author comparing two careers rather than making a statement that they played together. The wording puts distance between the two players. Just reading that phrase in isolation, I would assume the rest of the paragraph is going to be a compare-and-contrast between the two men; it makes it feel like there's a "however" coming up soon.
    – Darth Pseudonym
    Commented Nov 18, 2022 at 15:26
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Another reason so far missing here can be that adding 'both' implies only two people; 'talk to us' (& 'they taught') could refer to any number of people greater than one (or one who is unknown, in the case of 'they') - so depending on context or lack of it that might be useful to convey that there were only two people besides the one talking to them.

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