this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2025
1668 points (98.5% liked)
Technology
71866 readers
4354 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Upvoted and agreed, not least because I just learned that "all of the sudden," while at present a nonstandard variant of "all of a sudden," has valid history.
And of course it doesn't matter in this casual context!
But in formal writing, in this era, using "a" will avoid distracting the reader from your main point.
"All of the sudden" is only valid because it's so commonly (incorrectly) used. Much as it annoys me, that's just how language works.
"of the sudden" (1570) actually predates "of a sudden" (Shakespeare) according to my OED as squinted at through the nifty magnifying glass. But it's been considered obsolete for a long time despite having all of a sudden experienced a resurgence.
(Note, I modernized the spellings of "sudden" rather than try to switch focus back and forth)
Can't we just embrace adverbification and agree to write "suddenly"?
all of the suddenly?
No! For made up reasons I don’t understand adverbs are verboten!
If "all of the sudden" becomes standard I will definitely do this.
Nothing wrong with "suddenly." I probably should have used it in my previous comment. It's just that sometimes you want to say "all of a sudden." Especially at storytime. The extra time helps build the suspense. "Suddenly" is more sudden in that it just jumps in there. With "all of a sudden," the subject isn't ready but the listeners are.
People aren't saying it because they're language scholars, it's because they misheard the proper modern usage. So it goes for many language shifts.
Only if you allow the ignorant to remain uncorrected.
Erin: "All of the sudden, I was awake."
Non-Anglo here.
Totally not distracted bcs my brain autocorrected it to “all of a sudden” without even noticing.
A bit like "It deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are"
Also never seen/heard the "the" variant. (Well consciously that is).
Does not have to be Before Christ.