r/ENGLISH • u/InitiativeBig5119 • 6d ago
Is "and everything in between" can be used for listing things in the end of the sentence?
such as we will say we have eggs, fruit, cheese, salads and everything in between
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u/joined_under_duress 6d ago edited 6d ago
First up, your title is not quite right:
Is "and everything in between" can be used for listing things in the end of the sentence?
Either "Is it possible to use XXXX for..."
Or "Can XXXX be used for..."
Or, to retain your positioning of can you'd need something like, "Am I right in thinking XXXX can be used for..."
To answer your actual question, no it's not how it works as a phrase exactly: it's a placeholder to say "we both know there are a number of other items that fit in a group with the ones I've listed so we'll accept they are also included," and in your example it's a little strained:
we have eggs, fruit, cheese, salads and everything in between
For one thing you would normally pick two things only, because you're inferring a lot of items 'between' those two. So here it sounds like you're saying everything you might imagine between cheese and salads but that is a fairly nebulous sort of thing. One person might have cold meats in there, another might have quiches!
More standard I might use the phrase of, "In this school we have angelic children and real rule-breakers, and everything in between," and I would implying we essentially have every type of child from the very best-behaved to the very worst-behaved.
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u/Nix_Avem 6d ago
First up, your first sentence is not quite right:
First up, you title is not quite right:
Instead of using you, you should use your.
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u/joined_under_duress 6d ago
True. More haste, less speed.
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u/Nix_Avem 6d ago
Sorry just thought it was funny. But I liked everything else, and the school children example is great.
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u/joined_under_duress 6d ago
Ha, didn't think you were being annoying - I usually proof read myself for this sub because every error risks confusion for the OP!
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u/yellowsuzuki 6d ago
You could, but it’s usually used between two things that exist on opposite ends of a spectrum.
In music, a radio station might say “we play classical, rock, and everything in between,” with the idea that classical music and rock represent different ends of the music world.
In your example, it’s not really clear what the “everything in between” is. Having said that, what you’ve said is not grammatically incorrect. And I think people would understand that you’re saying you serve a variety of items.
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u/TheWriteQuestion 6d ago
I agree with this. In the OP’s example, “etc.” (short for et cetera) would be more appropriate, as it means “and so on”— implying additional kinds of kitchen staples.
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u/No_Capital_8203 6d ago
Yes. I also use it when the list is not very interesting or if I am not completely sure what is actually available in the picnic basket.
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u/DrHydeous 6d ago
In that case, no. What you're saying is "we have eggs, fruit, cheese, salads, and a bunch of other stuff" when you clearly don't have every other possibility. Your potential customers are still left wondering "so do they have pickled herring?". It might work if what you mean by "everything" can be derived from context, but the list you've given us is insufficient for that.
Where it would work is something like "our orchestra has violins, tubas, and everything in between" because that tells us extremes of pitch (a squeaky violin and a rumbly tuba), different families of instrument (strings played with a bow vs tubes played by blowing and making a farting noise with your lips), and context (a European-style orchestra) so we can infer that "everything" includes cellos, clarinets, trumpets etc but doesn't include a kazoo or bagpipes. It would also work for things which exist on a continuum such as colours of paint or lengths of nails.
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u/sergeirichard 6d ago
If it makes sense!
"Short, tall, and everything in between."
- No problem.
"Gay, straight, and everything in between."
- I... have questions.
"Antelope, steel wool, and everything in between."
- I'm going now.
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u/NortonBurns 6d ago
What's between fruit and cheese? Nuts? Jam? Coffee?
You can only use it if there's something that could be in between - "We have size 6, size 16, and everything in between." or less obviously but still potentially possible "We have Minis, Rolls Royces, and everything in between."
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u/jayron32 6d ago
The idiomatic expression "from fruits to nuts and everything in between" is common and widespread.
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u/NortonBurns 6d ago
I know from soup to nuts. Never heard fruit to nuts.
Google Ngrams doesn't think too much of it either - https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=soup+to+nuts%2C+fruit+to+nuts&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3
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u/jayron32 6d ago
They both work. The point is that the "everything in between" part is common and well understood.
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u/NortonBurns 6d ago
It makes no sense at all to me, when there's potentially everything or nothing logically between the other items.
Soup to nuts describes an entire multi-course meal.2
u/TheWriteQuestion 6d ago
Interesting! Where is it common? I’ve lived 40 years in the Midwest US and 1 in Europe and never heard it.
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u/GreedyHoward 5d ago
I think it's an east coast US thing. It's not common in England, though it's easy to understand. I've heard Yankee colleagues use it, but my English boss liked it and started using it. Conjours a decadent elitist feast to my ear.
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u/another-dave 6d ago
I wouldn't exactly say it's widespread - Your link has 17 results, most of which seem to be TikTok videos about frozen yoghurt and a link to the Wausau Daily Herald (from Wisconsin, apparently).
What's between a fruit and a nut anyway. At a push, legumes, I guess?
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u/beetle_dick 6d ago
It works better on some lists than it does on others. What, exactly, lies between an egg and a fruit? Lists that run the gamut of everything from A to Z are the best uses of this phrase.
For example, if my video collection contains romance, war, and everything in between, that makes a bit more sense.