Professional Documents
Culture Documents
If you use "all of" before words like "us," "you," "it," "him," and "her" (i.e., personal pronouns), you will be correct.
For example:
All of us
All of them
If you use "all" before nouns, you will be correct. For example:
Using "all" as a determiner before a personal pronoun is usually wrong. For example:
all we
all they
The word "of" is required to avoid a reading stutter. Look at these fuller examples:
All we believe.
(Native English speakers would interpret this as "everything that we believe" and not "everybody
believes.")
All they are thinking.
(Native English speakers would interpret this as "everything that they are thinking" and not "they
all are thinking.")
It is perfectly acceptable to use "all of" before a noun. For example:
All of us believe.
All of them are thinking.
(This just means that "all we" became "all of us" and that "all they" became "all of them.")