Talk:all

Logically negated

An earlier version said that all logically negated to not some. I can't see how this could be correct. Strictly, the logical negative would be not all or at least one with the negative — if not all X are Y, then at least one X is not Y. If not some X are Y, then no X are Y, which is certainly a special case of not all, but generally if one X is Y and one isn't, then it's quite true that not all X are Y.

So much for logic.

In actual speech, the opposite of all may be no/none or it may be some, depending on context. Just to make things more fun, many speakers (myself not included) like to say "All are not ..." to mean "Not all are ...". Drives me nuts, but that's what people say. Maybe we should note that (the usage, not that it drives me nuts :-). -dmh 20:21, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Revision as of 15:23, 3 February 2006 by 68.154.224.64 has plagiarized the names of the languages of the top three translations.

The audio file isn't working

German: Pronoun all

"Short form of alles. Only used in the combination all das (“all that”)."

That's not true. It can be used like "all meine Tiere" (all my animals), or "all ihre Freunde" (all her friends), or "all die Tiere" (that would be considered poetic, however). So, "all" - personal pronoun - noun. Or - "all" - article - noun, in poetry/literature. Could someone write that up into a proper explanation? --Nellie Nüms (talk) 11:00, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your hint. I added the "Usage notes" section and used your examples. I hope it's better now. --MaEr (talk) 11:45, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Pronunciation of final L

I'm not a native speaker, so I'm not going to change it, but I believe the l in the IPA form should really be a ɫ, right?

There is no such phoneme in English. It is possible that some dialects, speakers, or contexts do carry that sound, but our IPA is generally broader and largely phonemic, rather than phonetic. When enunciated as a separate word, the given value is correct. --EncycloPetey 09:49, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

In one sense you're correct and in one sense not. [ɫ] is indeed the way English speakers would realize the l sound at the end of the word. Thus, if one were describing the exact pronunciation of the word, that would be the symbol used for the final consonant. However, dictionaries typically provide what's called a phonemic transcription instead of a phonetic. Basically, [ɫ] is considered to be an allophone of /l/. [l] will never be found at the end of a word and [ɫ] will never be found at the beginning. So to provide the phonemic transcription, we just use /l/ as we can tell by the rules of English that it's really [ɫ]. I hope that makes any sense at all. —Leftmostcat 09:54, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the elaboration:)

Vowel Sound

I'm a Canadian, but have lived much of my life in various parts of the US as well. Perhaps I'm misjudging this, but in American English, to me it really does seem like the vowel sound in "all," ball, fall, etc., is less of an open-mid back rounded vowel, and more of an open back sound [ɑ] or something akin to that. Phonemically, I don't think many English speakers associate the sound with "o," either. To me, pronouncing it as the open-mid back rounded vowel (the reverse "c" looking thing) sounds a little British or simply haughty, but perhaps I'm not hearing things correctly.

I'm living in Japan now, and in Japanese, the sound is often transcribed as "o" as in オール100円 (all 100yen), but I'm not sure if that's the closest representation, either, or rather something carried over from a long time ago, or just mistranscribed. Please advise.

To me, the vowel in all is the same as in law, which is /ɔ/. The ‘ll’ in all is very dark, close to the dark Russian ‘l’. —Stephen 01:43, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

• See w:Cot-caught merger. You're both right. —Internoob (Disc.•Cont.) 03:20, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Deletion debate

The following information has failed Wiktionary's deletion process.

It should not be re-entered without careful consideration.

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all

rfd-sense: all#Determiner Completely. You’ve got it all wrong.

This would seem to be a sense of all#Adverb. DCDuring TALK 23:03, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Delete. Tooironic 04:52, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Delete. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:49, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree. This is simply adverbial usage. Delete. BedfordLibrary 15:05, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Sense removed.​—msh210℠ (talk) 17:54, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

English

Can you say "We're doing it all" if you want to say something like "We're doing everything"? 81.68.255.36 11:15, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes. —Stephen ^(Talk) 19:39, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

The following information passed a request for deletion.

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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all again

Rfd-redundant: "So much: Don't want to go? All the better since I lost the tickets" redundant to "intensifier".​—msh210℠ (talk) 17:56, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Keep. It does seem to be an intensifying adverb, but it doesn't have the same gloss (ie, not "wholly" or "exclusively"). The gloss "so much" seems to work when "all" is followed by non-determiner "the" and a comparative. Though "all the" is often followed by comparatives "more", "better", "worse", "harder", there are at least 70 other comparatives the follow at COCA. Of course, some instances are of determiner all, not adverb all, but it seems that all of the comparatives appear sometimes where the "so much" gloss is the best.

I'm not sure what the best gloss is when followed by non-determiner "that" and an adverb or adjective. DCDuring TALK 19:18, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Kept - no consensus to delete, and no discussion after nearly a year. --EncycloPetey 19:00, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Who all, what all, etc

The discussions that led to all#English-whatall are Wiktionary:Tea_room/2018/July#"what_all_you_can_do" and Wiktionary:Tea_room/2019/March#what_all. - -sche (discuss) 06:36, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

noun

[uncountable] the entire area, place, environment, or the like: All is calm, all is bright.
[plural;  used with a plural verb]  every one; everybody (a formal use): all rise, the court is in session.
[uncountable] everything: Is that all you've got to say?
https://www.wordreference.com/definition/all

--Backinstadiums (talk) 09:32, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Adverb: so much

However so much reads To a certain degree or extent: Identical twins are so much alike, it is difficult to identify them. Which one is correct? --Backinstadiums (talk) 11:11, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

characterized by:

characterized by: dominated in mood or character by something (informal) 
He was all smiles.

--Backinstadiums (talk) 11:27, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

ALL (determiner)

ALL (determiner): Used with plural nouns. The noun may have the, this, that, my, her, his, etc. in front of it, or a number.

Does OED's definition imply after all you can't have both a determiner and a number, as in all these five answers are wrong, or all the five people wanted to go? If so, should it be added to wiktionary's definition too?

For me These five answers are all wrong and The five people all wanted to are O.K. --Backinstadiums (talk) 17:29, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

of all the…

of all the… ​used to express anger Of all the nerve! --Backinstadiums (talk) 16:55, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

(obsolete) Any.

​Any whatever: He denied all knowledge of the crime. --Backinstadiums (talk) 11:28, 22 April 2021 (UTC)