In the Portuguese language we usually use the expression "de todos" to give emphasis and stand out something…
As I understand now, its equivalent would be "of all", but what about: "among all" or "over all"? Can they be used as well?
And what about "overall"? And "amongst all"? Are they false cognates to Brazilians?
For example, in the sentence:
"Regarding this application, gold is the most employed metal of all"
Only "of" would be correct right?
But, for example, "among all" means "entre todos" in Portuguese:
"Considerando essa aplicação, ouro é o metal mais empregado entre todos"
This sentence would be perfectly acceptable…
And why in this other examples I've found on the web are acceptable, but not in my first example sentence of this post?
These examples:
*What is the most widespread language over all continents?
*Why choose Spanish over all the other languages?
*US educational system is to question the primacy of one language variety over all others
One of the only places I could find talking about this was this teacher on YouTube:
Overall – Over All – All Over – Meaning Overall Explanation Over All – English Vocabulary CAE
He had a funny example.
Thanks in advance!
Best Answer
Right, I'll have a go at answering this!
Yes, we can and do use among all, (see here ) but I think it would always be of in that particular phrase the most [adjective] of all.
Overall as a single word means in general, considered as a whole.
In your examples using over all, I think the first one uses over in the sense of across the area of. The others use it in the sense of in preference to.