Learn English – grammatical error in ‘is known to the prominent figures’

As a native speaker, I would not regard empty box of matches, empty bottle of beer, empty glass of water, or empty tin of sardines to be "wrong". Anyone arguing that I should say instead empty matchbox, empty beer bottle, empty water glass, and empty sardine tin probably wouldn't get in too many more discussions with me, as I'd likely regard them as a pompous bag of wind.

To echo what @Bradd Szonye mentioned in the comments, there's a difference between "grammatically wrong" and "preferred in formal writing." An empty beer bottle may be a better way of saying it, but "grammatically wrong" is overstated.

There are times when we should be very careful in our wording, when it behooves us to be very fussy about such details (for example, when we are writing a resume to compete against 50 or 60 other people for a coveted job, or writing an academic paper that will be read with scrutiny by our peers). Other situations don't require such careful attention to linguistic quirks. I would say that empty box of matches falls squarely under the umbrella of good enough for everyday conversation.

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).