Both Both and And

as Well as As Well As

I see the smartest people use as well as instead of and. More words, more good, right? But both and and are a natural pair. You don't want to thank both the manager as well as the team. You want to thank both the manager and the team. Both brings the two nouns together, and and cements the union.

As well as is different. It’s no coincidence that it shows up in sentences like I can’t swim as well as I used to or Yolanda speaks German as well as any of us. As well as is a comparison. What you’re saying with as well as is that what’s true about one noun (the manager) is just as true about the other noun (the team). The comparison between the two nouns separates them, calling attention to each.

To see why both…as well as is so strange, we could rephrase the sentence: I’d like to thank both the manager as much as the team. You can see that both is struggling to unite the two nouns while as much as fights to separate them. As well as works the same way.

This is not to say that both…and is a perfect construction. Arguably, using both both and and is redundant. If I say both headlights are out, I don’t have to specify that I mean the left headlight and the right headlight. If I say lions and tigers are big cats, the word both doesn’t add any meaning. Just the same, both…and is useful for emphasis. It wasn’t just the manager or the coders. It was both the manager and the team. They were in it together.