Learn English – All the + singular noun

grammaticality

[The following regards the UK case Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co (1893)] One of the arguments made on the Company’s behalf was that holding that there
was a contract with the claimant would mean that the Company had contracted with
everybody in the world, because the advert was addressed to the whole world. Th is
argument was given short shrift by the Court of Appeal:

It is not a contract made with all the world. There is the fallacy of the argument. It is
an offer made to all the world; and why should not an offer be made to all the world
which is to ripen into a contract with anybody who comes forward and performs the
condition? (per Bowen LJ)

Based on the content, I guess that all the world = the whole world. Yet can all the be followed by a singular noun? How? I know that a plural noun can follow it, so am confused.

Source: p 17, The Law of Contract, 5 ed (2012), by O’Sullivan and Hilliard

Best Answer

I've looked up Swan's Practical English Usage, and its Unit 36 cites the following example as grammatical:

She's eaten all (of) the cake.

Further on, in 36.4, it says that

all can be used before some singular countable nouns referring to things that can naturally be divided into parts. [..] It can also be used before proper nouns (e.g. names of places or writers).

All that week. All my family. All the way.
All (of) London knew about her affair. I've read all (of) Shakespeare.

But it remarks that "with other singular countable nouns, it is more natural to use whole (e.g. the whole story).

Personally I tend to think that Graham is right and "all the world" here means "all the people of the world". But this probably dovetails with Swan's description, because the world's population can be divided into parts (say, those who can or who cannot buy the Carbolic Smoke Ball).

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