All and all of

Question

could you please do me a favor? Gimme some concrete examples to explain the nuance between "all" and "all of" to help me better understand it?  thanks in advance.

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

There's no nuances of difference in meaning of the words themselves, Jeff, but several minor differences in grammatical usage. It's a bit messy, but here's a summary of Swan, Practical English Usage:

1) Both OK before nouns with a determiner: 'All (of) the cake is gone; all (of) my friends are gone.' It is the determiner that makes the noun specific, not the 'all (of)'.

2) Only 'all' if no determiner: 'All people like pie; all sugar is sweet'.

3) Only 'all of' before object pronoun: 'All of them are hungry; all of it is gone'.

4) Only 'all' after object pronoun: 'She ate them all; he made it all himself'.

5) Only 'all of' with complements: 'Are those all of them?; that is not all of the pie'.

This is not a complete picture, but should cover most of your concerns. Perhaps other members can cite more guidelines.

Jeff_999 · Answer

Whoa, thanks very very much, Mr. Micawber.
Now I got a pretty clear picture of that. haha. See, I've already bookmarked this page for reviewing in future.

Anonymous · Answer

0 What about the sentence "all of my talented students"?  Is that correct, or should I say "all my talented students" and why?  Thanks!! 0-

CalifJim · Answer

0 That's covered by Mr. M's (Swan's) first rule. 01i00my02i00 is a determiner. Both are correct. Make an arbitrary choice.02br
02br
00 (By the way, those aren't sentences; they're phrases.)02br
02br
00 CJ0-

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