"all the sudden"?

Question

0Tonight I heard (or thought I heard) a Scottish woman in a film using "all the sudden" the way I would use "all of a sudden" -- that is, meaning "suddenly."  Did I hear correctly?  Is that specifically Scottish, or general British English?0-

Marius Hancu · Accepted Answer

0 It shows up on the BBC site:02br
02br
0500240hrefhttp://www.google.com/search?q=site:bbc.co.uk+%22all+the+sudden%22+&hl=en&start=10&sa=N

Lil&apos; Ruby Rose · Answer

0Some of the examples are of the form "all the sudden attention". The BBC entries seem to be blog and forum postings (with other grammatical errors) rather than anything produced and posted by the BBC proper.02br
02br
00I'd be cautious of using this: I think it would be easy to hear 'of a' unintentionally sounding similar to 'the' in some of the speedier Scottish accents. I've never heard "all the sudden" used in this way, instead of "all of a sudden" in England or Ireland.0-

Conchita57 · Answer

0 01blockquote

01cite10Marius Hancu12cite10It shows up on the BBC site:12br
12br
15012br
12br
12blockquote

10It is nevertheless not standard British English.0240

Nona the brit · Answer

0 'ova' and 'the' sound quite similar. I don't think it is standard for Northern English or Scottish dialects either. 0-

Anonymous · Answer

Two years too late, the correct way to use the idiom is "all of a sudden." American and British use of quotations is also different. Americans are taught for the most part that a period (full-stop) is used inside the quote, unless used to quote something technical regarding computer language or websites etc..

Two years too late, the correct way to use the idiom is: "all of a sudden." – American

Two years too late, the correct way to use the idiom is: "all of a sudden". – British

“All of the sudden” is also incorrect, no need for dashes either.

I would assume the reason she hadn’t used “of” in the idiom is because in fluent speech many people disregard prepositions while using idioms or other phrases, speaking in general for that matter. It is also an indicator of accent and dialect.

There are many major regions around the world where English is spoken: UK, USA, South Africa, Australia, India, China, cultural and regional influences tend to shape the language. Strong dialects and accents have given rise to great variations to the use of words, pronunciation and even grammar usage. The media of these regions also tends to drastically reinforce these variations of spoken English and these changes then become acceptable for the region. Even in the United States English spoken in California, Southern states and along the east coast can often sound drastically different. The same is true for the UK.

Anonymous · Answer

My wife says "all the sudden" to mean suddenly. And she is not scottish or brittish. She is American.

Google search shows "all the sudden" = 2.5 million and "all of a sudden" = 17.2 million.

So while that phrase is certainly less common, it is not unheard of.

Anonymous · Answer

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/blog/shutdown_corner/post/UFL-news-J-P-Losman-will-be-the-face-of-footba?urn=nfl,177959

Check out the article above on Yahoo sports. The moron author uses "all the sudden." I guess it just shows you what kind of mind is endlessly fascinated by sports all day long.

Khoff · Answer

I see no need to revive a thread from two years ago just to call someone a moron.

Philip · Answer

khoffI see no need to revive a thread from two years ago just to call someone a moron.

I don't know why you didn't lock the thread, Khoff, so I'll do it for you. Next time, we'll plan to be in Edinburg at the same time, where we can do some research on this topic.

"all the sudden"?

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