Why is “others” used here?

Question

During my English test, I wrote the following sentence:

There’re many people in the park. Some are walking; the others are flying kites.

My English teacher says that “the others” is wrong, and the correct word is “others” because “the people in the park” is too broad. Is he right? When should I use “others” instead of “the others”?

I know this isn't the subject of the question, but let me add that "there're" isn't really a word anyone uses or writes down. I guess maybe it's legitimate but I did a double-take when I saw it. Nearly everyone would just say "there are." — Daniel McLaury, Jan 11 '21 at 21:32
@DanielMcLaury Actually, it's often spoken, and sometimes used in written dialog to indicate the shortening of the expression when spoken. https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/12865/is-therere-similar-to-theres-a-correct-contraction — barbecue, Jan 12 '21 at 20:32
@barbecue1: Even the people who claim to say it out loud are saying it looks weird written out, and there's some disagreement there as to whether it's even possible to say out loud. So I think it's at least worth avoiding unless you're sufficiently experienced with English to have a pretty strong opinion in favor of using it. — Daniel McLaury, Jan 12 '21 at 22:04

score 50 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 10 '21 at 14:01

50

Both are grammatically correct, but the meanings are different.

Some are walking: the others are flying kites.

The use of the definite article the others means that all of the people who are not walking are flying their kites: if 70% are walking, the other 30% are flying kites.

Some are walking: others are flying kites.

Without a definite article, others means that some of the people who are not walking are flying their kites: if 70% are walking, 30% or fewer of the people are flying kites.

answered Jan 10 '21 at 14:01

JavaLatte

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+1, though for the first meaning I think that "the rest" would be more idiomatic than "the others". – ruakh Jan 11 '21 at 22:26
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@ruakjh, This Ngram graph shows that "the others are" is about twice as common as "the rest are". https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=the+rest+are%2Cthe+others+are&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3 – JavaLatte Jan 12 '21 at 09:11
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I'm not saying that "the others" is never idiomatic in any context; only that in this sentence, with the meaning you describe, "the others" is less idiomatic than "the rest". – ruakh Jan 12 '21 at 18:11
ngram frequency isn't meaningful for spoken English. – barbecue Jan 12 '21 at 20:33
@barbecue, "isn't meaningful for spoken English" is a bit strong. "is more reliable for written English" is probably closer to the truth. Anyway, the OP's question is a about awritten test, so NGram evidence should be admissible even by you. – JavaLatte Jan 13 '21 at 08:47
@ruakh, do you have any references to back up your opinion about usage in this particular context? If not, I respectfully suggest that you are in the one-third of people who prefer "the rest", where the other two thirds prefer "the others" – JavaLatte Jan 13 '21 at 09:10
@JavaLatte: According to the Google Books Ngram Viewer, "the rest of the people" is more than a thousand times as common as "the others of the people". [link] – ruakh Jan 13 '21 at 21:16
@JavaLatte What I should have said was "Ngram results are not really meaningful for conversational English" because they are based on written sources which skew heavily towards formal technical and scientific writing, and because the actual popularity/usage of a given phrase cannot be determined solely by how many books include it. A best-selling novel and an obscure scientific treatise are equal in ngrams. – barbecue Jan 13 '21 at 22:13
@ruakh, of course it is, because "the others of the people" is ungrammatical- just check actual instances of your NGram search and you will see that they are not real. The correct usage is "the other people" or "the others". This NGram graph shows that both of these are more common than "the rest of the people". https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=the+rest+of+the+people%2C+the+other+people%2C+the+others&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cthe%20rest%20of%20the%20people%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cthe%20other%20people%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cthe%20others%3B%2Cc0 – JavaLatte Jan 14 '21 at 12:53
@barbecue, I think that NGram searches are a pretty good indicator of usage, as long as you look at actual instances to check that search is giving you data that is representative of the usage that you are looking for. If you had looked at the actual examples, you would have seen that relevant occurrences of :"the others" is significantly more common than for "the rest". Anyway, the OP's question isn't about conversational English: it's about a sentence that the OP wrote in a test, and the sentence is in present simple, which is a largely written narrative style. – JavaLatte Jan 14 '21 at 13:09
@JavaLatte: I'm glad you now accept that context is relevant, and that a simple Ngram search is not always enough to elucidate details. – ruakh Jan 14 '21 at 16:57
@JavaLatte why do you assume I didn't look at your examples? I did. Also, you seem to be misunderstanding me. Conversational English is written down all the time, as for example in handwritten notes, emails, and yes, language learning tests. NGrams excludes all of those sources. It only includes published books. A huge limitation when you are talking about English as spoken and written in everyday conversation. – barbecue Jan 14 '21 at 18:25
ruakh, barbecue, we are digressing. I maintain that the NGram evidence that I quoted was adequately checked and is a relevant and reasonable response to ruakh's comment. You two dispute my evidence but have not provided any evidence at all to back up ruakh's comment. That is my final comment on the subject. If you wish to further discuss the admissibility of evidence on ELL, I suggest that you each write a meta post about it. – JavaLatte Jan 15 '21 at 04:31

Why is “others” used here?

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