thoughts

1) accumulated knowledge, experience

2) ideas/opinions about

Hi Taka,

(1) Every expert has their own knowledge of their fields.



(2) Every expert has their own thoughts about their fields.

What exactly do you native speakers think is the difference between the two above?


To me, 'knowledge' su

Another question, Clive.
If you were supposed to make a general statement on experts, which would it be your choice and why?
(1) Every expert has his knowledge of his own fields.
(2) All experts have their knowledge of their own fields. 

Hi Taka

I think both sentences sound awkward, but if I had to choose one, I'd choose (2) after removing the first 'their':
(2) All experts have knowledge of their own fields.

My preference would also be to use 'in' rather than 'of' (i.e. in their own fields).

Amy, why would you chose 'all' over 'every'?

(And I meant to write 'knowledge about' as is shown in the first post. ****, the edit function here expires so quickly)

Hi Taka

Like Clive, I guess I prefer 'all experts' because the plural combines better with 'their'.

That's not the point, Ami.

The question is, why would you choose 'all Xs' rather than 'every X' if you were supposed to make a general statement about Xs?

Taka, did you want your sentence to mean this:

«Every expert has their/his own level of competence in his/their field»
or, in other words,
«For any given fileld of science (or whatever you mean), level of competence differs greatly among experts»

Is that the thought you want to express? If it is so, then I am afraid neither Clive's nor Yankee's re-wordings work

1. All men have a head
2. Every man has a head
Of, course, these sentences have literally the same meaning, but, as Clive and Yankee, I see a subtle difference in the perception of "all" and "every".
"All" is like uniting everybody in one big group (set) and then making a statement about this group.

"Every" is more like
enumerating the items of this grout o