All, every, and whole

UNIT  83  All, every, and whole

A.   All everyone    everybody     everything

We do not normally use all to mean everyone/everybody:
street)

• Everybody enjoyed the party. (not All enjoyed . . . )

• Ann knows everyone on her street. (not all on her street)

Sometimes you can use all to mean everything, but it is usually better to say everything:
went wrong)

• He thinks he knows everything. (not knows all)

• It was a terrible vacation. Everything went wrong. (not all went wrong)

But you can use all in the expression all about:

• They told us all about their vacation.

We also use all to mean the only thing(s):

• All I've eaten today is a sandwich. (the only thing I've eaten)

B.   We use a singular verb after Every/everyone/everybody/everything:

• Every seat in the theater was taken.

• Everybody looks tired today

• Everything she said was true

But we often use they/them/their after everyone/everybody, specially in spoken English:

• Has everyone got their tickets? (= his or her ticket)

• Everybody said they would come (= he or she would come)                       

C.   All and whole 
We use whole mainly with singular nouns:

• Have you read the whole book? (all the book, not just a part of it)

• He was very quiet. He didn't say a word the whole evening.

• She has spent her whole life in South America. 

We say the/my/her, etc., before whole. her life

• the whole book/all the book 

• her whole life/all her life

You can also say "a whole . . .''

• Jack ate a whole loaf of bread yesterday. (= a complete loaf)

We do not normally use whole with uncountable nouns:

all the money (not the whole money)


D.   Every/all/whole with time words

We use every to say how often something happens. So we say every day/every week/every Monday/every ten minutes/every three weeks, etc:

• We go out every Friday night

• The buses run every ten minutes.

• Ann goes to see her mother every three weeks.

All day/the whole day= the complete day

• We spent all day/the whole day on the beach.

• I've been trying to find you all morning /the whole morning.

Note that we say all day/all week, etc. (not all the day/all the week)