All

All as a determiner

All means ‘every one’, ‘the complete number or amount’ or ‘the whole’. We use it most often as a determiner. We can use a countable noun or an uncountable noun after it:

• All my friends are away at university.
• All tickets cost 25 pounds.
• All information about the new product is confidential.

As a determiner, all comes before articles, possessives, demonstratives and numbers.

	article	possessive	demonstrative	number
All	the				trees had died.
All		my			family were at the party.
All			this		food must be eaten today.
All				25	students took the test.

All with no article

When all refers to a whole class of people or things, we don’t use the:

• All children love stories. (i.e. every child in the world)
• Not: All the children love stories.

We don’t use the with time expressions such as all day, all night, week, all year, all summer:

• I spent all day looking for my car keys.
• The party went on all night and some of the neighbours complained.

See also

• A/an and the

All of

We use all of before personal pronouns (us, them), demonstrative pronouns (this, that, these, those) and relative pronouns (whom, which). The personal pronoun is in the object form:

• I need to speak to all of you for a few minutes.
• He brought gifts for all of us.
• We had to contact the insurance firm and the airline, all of which took a lot of time. (all of which = ‘contacting the insurance firm and the airline’)

With demonstratives (this, that, these, those) we can say all of or all without of:

• [talking about a pile of kitchen waste]
• All (of*) this has to go out into the rubbish bin.*

We often use of after all in definite noun phrases (i.e. before the, possessives and demonstratives), but it is not obligatory:

• All (of) the workers were given a pay-rise at the end of the year.
• I gave all (of) my old books to my sister when she went to university.
• What shall we do with all (of) this cardboard? Throw it out?

All without of

We use all, not all of, before indefinite plural nouns referring to a whole class of people or things:

• All cats love milk.
• Not: All of cats love milk.
• This book was written for all children, everywhere.

We use all, not all of, before uncountable nouns:

• All junk food is bad for you.
• Not: All of junk food is bad for you.
• I love all music, not just classical.

warning

We don’t normally say all people; we say everybody or everyone:

• Everyone wants to achieve their personal goals in life.
• Not: All people want to achieve …

All with personal pronouns

When all refers to a personal pronoun which is the object in a clause, we can use pronoun + all or all of + pronoun. The pronoun is in the object form:

• I used to have three pens but I’ve lost them all. (or … but I’ve lost all of them).
• Not: … but I lost all them.

However, in short responses, all of must be used:

• A: How many of these boxes are you going to need?
• B: All of them.
• Not: Them all.

We use all of with the object form of the pronoun, even when the pronoun is the subject in the clause:

• All of us are hoping for good news.
• A long line of people waited to speak to the officer. All of them had a story to tell.

All as a pronoun

We can use all alone as a pronoun in formal situations:

• All were happy with the outcome. (less formal: Everyone was happy with the outcome.)
• All will be revealed to the public in 25 years’ time, when the cabinet papers are released. (less formal: Everything will be revealed to the public …)

Usually, all as a pronoun is premodified or postmodified:

• More than 100 people came to the refugee centre. Almost all had lost family members or property or both.
• All that we had been told turned out to be untrue.

All as an adverb

When all refers to the subject of a clause, it usually comes in the normal mid position for adverbs (between the subject and the main verb, or after the modal verb or first auxiliary verb, or after be as a main verb):

• The kids all go to school on the same bus.
• These items could all have been bought cheaper on the Internet.
• The students are all here now. We can start.

All meaning ‘completely’ or ‘extremely’

We can also use all as an adverb meaning ‘completely’ or ‘extremely’, especially in informal styles:

• He lived all alone in an old cottage in the woods.
• He came back all covered in mud.
• I lost a good friend, and all because of my stupidity.
• Maggie got all upset when she found out the house had been sold. (informal)

All: not all

We can make all negative by using not in front of it:

• Not all the buses go to the main bus station, so be careful which one you get.
• We weren’t all happy with the result.

See also

• All or every?
• All or whole?
• At all

All: after all

We use after all in two main ways. We use it to mean ‘in spite of what happened before’. With this meaning it usually occurs in end position:

• [spoken by someone who was previously not hungry]
• I think I might have something to eat now after all.
• She thought she would fail her driving test but she passed after all.

After all can also mean ‘it should be remembered that’:

• Why don’t you invite Nadia? After all, you do work with her every day.

warning

After all does not mean ‘finally’ or ‘at last’:

• We spoke about it and finally decided to sign the contract.
• Not: … and after all decided to sign the contract.