Paul Eggert wrote: > On 06/11/2012 01:05 AM, Jim Meyering wrote: >> I suspect that some those (sic) instances are exercising poetic license >> (Shakespeare, surely) or merely demonstrate that this error is common >> in informal speech (Salinger's narrative). > > Sorry, but that's not what's happening here. Certainly > E.B. White was not using informal speech in The New Yorker. > And I can easily find hundreds of other examples in formal > English that is carefully edited and is similarly unlikely > to contain grammatical errors. For example: > > Foremost among the reasons for all these changes in family structure > are the gains of the women’s movement. > -- Kate Bolick, "All the Single Ladies", The Atlantic, Nov. 2011 > > <http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/all-the-single-ladies/8654/> > > But all these dramas were facilitated by the F.B.I. > -- David K. Shipler, "Terrorist Plots, Hatched by the F.B.I.", > New York Times, April 28, 2012 > > <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/opinion/sunday/terrorist-plots-helped-along-by-the-fbi.html> > > All these decisions lie in our own hands. > -- David Cameron, in a prepared formal speech at the World Economic > Forum, January 26, 2012 > <http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/davos/article3300564.ece> > > There's nothing grammatically wrong with any of these > examples, and more generally, the notion that "all these" is > grammatically incorrect is just wrong. On the contrary, the > traditional form uniformly omits the "of": there are dozens > of instances of "all these" in the King James Version and in > Shakespeare, and zero instances of "all of these". The form > "all of these" is relatively recent, and is probably due to > form-association with "some of these", "most of these", etc. > Although "all of these" is now grammatically correct, it has > by no means supplanted the traditional form "all these"; > both forms are OK. > >> I did a quick search and found this in response to a question: >> http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/grammarlogs2/grammarlogs339.htm >> ... >> In most constructions, we dispense happily with the "of." However, when >> there is another pronoun (such as "those, those") following the "all," >> it's probably a good idea to include the "of." >> >> Authority: The New Fowler's Modern English Usage edited by >> R.W. Burchfield. Clarendon Press: Oxford, England. 1996. Used with the >> permission of Oxford University Press. (under _all_) > > I'm afraid you've been had. That web page is bogus. > I have a copy of Burchfield and it advises the opposite > of what that web page claims it says. Here's a direct > quote from Burchfield: > > _of_ can normally be dispensed with in nominal phrases: > e.g. _all those years ago_ > > -- Burchfield, p. 41, under "all" > >> do any those uses in gnulib sound better without the "of"? > > Clearly "of" is required after "any". "Any" and "all" are > grammatically different, which is why "all the time" is fine > but "any the time" is not. > > But to get back to your question, all the examples in > <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnulib/2012-06/msg00074.html> > work just as well, if not better, without the "of". Often > the optional "of" wastes the reader's time and wastes space. > Sometimes the "of" adds clarity or regularity, but I don't > see any such cases in those examples.
Hi Paul, You seem to feel pretty strongly about this, I don't, and it's not worth our time to debate it further, so I've reverted most of the change: >From 191622af65fefe28e476323f2f5e2b30dbec9630 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jim Meyering <meyer...@redhat.com> Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2012 11:32:54 +0200 Subject: [PATCH] maint.mk: revert most of the previous change re "all these" * top/maint.mk (prohibit_undesirable_word_seq_RE_): Remove that pair. For rationale, see the discussion at http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lib.gnulib.bugs/30912 --- ChangeLog | 7 +++++++ top/maint.mk | 2 +- 2 files changed, 8 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog index 7f27d17..3ba82c2 100644 --- a/ChangeLog +++ b/ChangeLog @@ -1,3 +1,10 @@ +2012-06-11 Jim Meyering <meyer...@redhat.com> + + maint.mk: revert most of the previous change re "all these" + * top/maint.mk (prohibit_undesirable_word_seq_RE_): Remove that pair. + For rationale, see the discussion at + http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lib.gnulib.bugs/30912 + 2012-06-10 Jim Meyering <meyer...@redhat.com> maint.mk: prohibit common grammar error: "all these" diff --git a/top/maint.mk b/top/maint.mk index bcdbe01..f0b889b 100644 --- a/top/maint.mk +++ b/top/maint.mk @@ -948,7 +948,7 @@ sc_prohibit_doubled_word: bad_xref_re_ ?= (?:[\w,:;] +|(?:see|also)\s+)\@xref\{ bad_pxref_re_ ?= (?:[.!?]|(?:see|also))\s+\@pxref\{ prohibit_undesirable_word_seq_RE_ ?= \ - /(?:\bcan\s+not\b|\ball these\b|$(bad_xref_re_)|$(bad_pxref_re_))/gims + /(?:\bcan\s+not\b|$(bad_xref_re_)|$(bad_pxref_re_))/gims prohibit_undesirable_word_seq_ = \ -e 'while ($(prohibit_undesirable_word_seq_RE_))' \ $(perl_filename_lineno_text_) -- 1.7.11.rc2
