It’s ‘All of a Sudden’ (There’s No ‘The’)

Suddenly, if you’re making something like an appetizer, you don’t need to grind it with a mortar and pestle—you already have a blender. Suddenly, every dish after every meal didn’t need to be washed by hand; it went into the dishwasher. Suddenly, if you want to boil some water, you don’t have to spend half an hour getting a firewood or a charcoal stove warm enough. You just flick on the electric burner. Suddenly, whole foods are prepackaged at the grocery store and there’s no need to spend half a day preparing a small meal. — Sipping tripApril 6, 2018

First, if this is one of your annoying hobbies, we’d like to apologize for letting you run into so many “sudden” circumstances there—consider yourself a stronger person. for surviving it. (And for those who might be wondering what the problem is, keep reading.)

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We are in the Golden Age of Photographers.

‘A’ Sudden vs ‘The’ Sudden

According to the word mavens, “all of the stopped” is considered a definite error to avoid with respect to the age old expression “all of a silence” (meaning “suddenly”, “sooner than expected”, “immediately”. instantly). “). Considering there are very few examples of mistakes found in edited sources, it seems most writers and their copy editors are diligently heeding advice. On the other hand, this phrase really has life on social media, in self-published articles, and in quotes from interviews in edited sources.

Seems pretty simple, doesn’t it? Here’s where it gets weird: there’s no clear grammatical explanation of why we use the article One in the expression instead of the. In the past, both articles usually come before the noun . suddenly (meaning “an unexpected incident, need, or danger”) in phrases formed with belong to means adverb “suddenly.”

I am forced to answer sodaine [sudden] to articles. – Henry Barrow, in John Greenwood’s A certain collection of abusive posts1590

Behold a sodaine [sudden] Behind me, I heard a loud noise…. — Francesco Colonna, Hypnertomachia1592

The Origin of ‘All of a sudden’

Evidence for the phrase “suddenly” dates back to at least the 17th century, and for some inexplicable reason its use persists while the noun suddenly and other set phrases formed with prepositions (IN, ABOVE, aboveAnd In) gradually fell into disuse. Linguistically, the noun exists as a fossil in modern expression.

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We are not sure exactly why all also becomes fixed in expression, but it emphasizes how completely unexpected or surprising things are—and it has served the same function for quite some time:

… they would need a golden Calf instead of Moses, to get ahead of them, and so suddenly they would violently attack Aaron….— John Dod and Robert Cleaver, Seven Lectures Godlie and Fruitfull1614

The fact that the expression is not clearly understood from the meaning of its composite words but has a meaning of its own makes it an idiom. For centuries, this idiom has existed alongside the indefinite article One, and it is in that form that people recognize it as true. Whether the construction “suddenly” (or slang “suddenly”) is recognized and accepted remains to be seen. But its use online, as well as its use in speech, happens quite a bit—and people who see and listen to such things are watching and listening.

Categories: Usage Notes
Source: vothisaucamau.edu.vn

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