"all six companies" or "all the six companies"

Question

Should it be "all six companies are ....." or "all the six companies are ....." when these companies are mentioned before?Thanks.

Bernice.farrugia · Accepted Answer

If they have already been mentioned before than 'all THE six companies' makes more sense.

Bernice

Pter · Answer

Thanks. I know we should use THE when referring to something we have mentioned previously. However, when I google for the following, I found

"all three boys" ---> 155,000 hits
"all the three boys" ---> 160,000 hits

"all three girls" ---> 311,000 hits
"all the three girls" ---> 350,000 hits

"all three men" ---> 310,000 hits
"all the three men" ---> 1,500,000 hits

Of course Google can't tell us the context, but just a rough idea. "all three boys", "all three girls" etc. seem to be quite common. Note that when we talk about "all three", it is quite obvious that the "three" must have been mentioned before.

This is quoted from BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5068228.stm
All three men had previously taken part in some of the mass on-and-off hunger strikes undertaken by detainees since last August, ...

Moreover, sometimes we just say "all three" without the noun, e.g.

He said medical teams had tried to revive the men, but all three were pronounced dead.

In the second sentence, we surely can't say "all the three" without the word men.

So, is "all three boys", "all three girls", "all six companies" etc. grammatical?

Bernice.farrugia · Answer

Yes you're right it depends on the context...and the examples you've quoted are of course also valid examples.  That's the beauty of the English language...there's an exception to every rule <img class='emoticon' style='Width:19px;Height:19px;' data-delaysrc='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' src='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' alt='Emotion: smile'/>  The second option with 'the' still seems more natural to me though!

Pter · Answer

Sorry, I don't quite get it. In what situations should we omit "the"?

(By the way, should it be
In what situations should we omit the "the"?)

Bernice.farrugia · Answer

In this case I would say that if the 6 companies were mentioned one by one previously in the text, then the use of 'the' would make the sentence sound more natural...simply because you will be referring to the 6 specific companies.
On the other hand, if the companies were just mentioned as a group (and not one by one), I would say that 'the' would not be necessary.

Bernice

Marius Hancu · Answer

all of the six companies (which I prefer)

or
all the six companies

Pter · Answer

Thanks Marius.

Yes, I can use "all of the six companies". This sounds better in some situations. However, I am still wondering if "all six companies" is better in some situations and whether emphasis has anything to do with the choice of using or omitting "the", just like Bernice has pointed out.

When I google for the following, I found the following:

In nytimes.com
"all three men" ---> 7660 hits
"all the three men" ---> 3 hits
"all of the three men" ---> 4 hits

In bbc.co.uk
"all three men" ---> 3090 hits
"all the three men" ---> 2 hits
"all of the three men" ---> 0 hits

When I replace three with four, five or six, or replace men with women, the first option still wins hands down. How can we explain that?

Yankee · Answer

To respond to your original question, I'd prefer "all six companies are...".

I think it would be more likely to find 'the' in a construction such as this:
"All (of) the six companies that we visited last week are ..."

Pter · Answer

Thank you, Amy. Would you please tell me why you prefer that?

I have been thinking hard about it but still couldn't figure it out. I tried to make up some theories.

Theory A

1. Omit "the" if the emphasis is on "all" because we are not talking about any particular beings.
2. Use "the" if we need to distinguish those we are talking about from the others OR when we want to emphasize the individuals.

So, I thought it would be OK to say these:

Scenario 1: Four men and two women applied for the job. They are waiting in the next room. All six applicants are certified accountants.
Scenario 2: Four men and two women are in room A. Three men are in room B. All the four applicants in room A are certified accountants and the others in room B are not.

When I searched the web, I found that both "all people in the world" and "all the people in the world" are very common! Unless you are thinking about ET, there can be no confusion of which people we are talking about. According to the above theory

"All people in the world" emphasizes "all", therefore, the stress is on "all" when the phrase is spoken. We are talking about everyone on earth, not just some people.
"All the people in the world" emphasizes "the people", therefore, the stress is on "people" when spoken. We are talking about people, not animals.

Theory B

"All" and "the" are determiners. "six" and other numerals are also determiners. Perhaps "all six" has the same effect as "all the" in making the reference to the following noun. When there is no doubt which six I am referring to, I can replace "six" with "the" or "the" with "six". That means, when "all six applicants in room A" and "all the applicants in room A" means the same thing in a certain context, they are interchangeable (except of course the former has a clear indication of how many). In fact, given scenario 2 above, all the following would be acceptable:

1. All six applicants in room A are certified accountants.
2. All the applicants in room A are certified accountants.
3. All the six applicants in room A are certified accountants.

But how about this? I suppose this is not correct, right?
4. All applicants in room A are certified accountants.

Theory C

There are no rules. I am over-analyzing it. Some people prefer to use "the" and others prefer not to. Just different tastes.

Which theory do you think is right?

Marius Hancu · Answer

>I know we should use THE when referring to something we have mentioned previously
that's it, nothing else, when you want to be SPECIFIC
also, that the lack of article shows in many instances lack of education:-[

"all six companies" or "all the six companies"

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