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Anonymous Posted 14 years ago
Grammar
All our music
I was constructing a sentence today that went roughly, 'If you and I play a few songs we could link people to our website where they could listen to all our music.' The puzzle is I was trying to use 'all our' in a colloquial sense. Instead of meaning, 'They can listen to every piece of music on our website,' I was trying to imply 'They can listen to songs where the whole band, not just the two of us, is playing.'
It seemed to cry out for some sort of punctuation or clarification. I tried putting 'of' in between the 'all' and 'our', but it still seemed ambiguous. I'm more curious about the why of it than workarounds. 'All our' seems to sound sort of Southern in the second meaning, perhaps a kissing cousin to y'all. I'm terrible at tenses and parts of speech. I usually am pretty good at doing it all by ear, but this one has got me bollixed.
Thanks,
Nate
It seemed to cry out for some sort of punctuation or clarification. I tried putting 'of' in between the 'all' and 'our', but it still seemed ambiguous. I'm more curious about the why of it than workarounds. 'All our' seems to sound sort of Southern in the second meaning, perhaps a kissing cousin to y'all. I'm terrible at tenses and parts of speech. I usually am pretty good at doing it all by ear, but this one has got me bollixed.
Thanks,
Nate
Top answer
That use as you say is informal and only works in conversation, where the meaning can be negotiated. Punctuation is not going to work; you are going to have to recast. If you and I play a few songs we could link people to our website where they could listen to the music of our whole band.
- That use as you say is informal and only works in conversation, where the meaning can be negotiated.
- Punctuation is not going to work; you are going to have to recast.
- If you and I play a few songs we could link people to our website where they could listen to the music of our whole band.
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1 Answers
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That use as you say is informal and only works in conversation, where the meaning can be negotiated. Punctuation is not going to work; you are going to have to recast.
If you and I play a few songs we could link people to our website where they could listen to the music of our whole band.
If you and I play a few songs we could link people to our website where they could listen to the music of our whole band.
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