Somewhere in the deep recesses of my memory, there's a half-buried idea that "each other" and "one another" are *not* the same thing, and are used differently. I seem to remember being taught that one's used when the interraction is limited to two only, and the other's used when there's a bigger group.
I have never seen it written (but am plenty old). Nevertheless, in my mind, "each other" (when used as a compound word) implies two people. When used otherwise, it is more specific that "one another".
At http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/each.html I found...
... "'Each other' is always two distinct words separated by a space although it functions grammatically as a sort of compound word."
"The students graded one another's performances." Said that way, it is only clear that each student's performance was graded by at least one other student.
"Each student graded the performance of each other student"--"each other" is not used as a compound word but is very specific.
"The students graded each other's performances" is IMHO sloppy/incorrect (unless you know there are only two) and grammer would be better served with "one another".
"When George and Sally met 12 years later, they stared into one another's eyes" -- doesn't sound right -- we need the compound term "each other" here.
Susan Webster Canton, Ohio
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