📂Writing

All is Followed by Either a Plural Countable Noun or a Singular Uncountable Noun

Grammar

All followed by a noun, referred to as N.

The N following All must be either a plural countable noun or a singular uncountable noun, and the number of “All N” must match the number of N.

Examples

Plural

“All red tiles indicate chimera states that emerge in both layers.” ¹

• Since tile is a countable noun, it comes after All in the plural form tiles.
• The subject “All red tiles” is plural, so the predicate indicate is used in its base form.

Singular

“GraphStruct stores all relevant static information from the network setup, including dimensions of component systems, connectivity structure, and various sets of indices into the array of dynamic variables².”

• As information is an uncountable noun, it is used in the singular form after all.

Explanation

It could be said that All aligns more with the way of thinking of Korean speakers than Every or Each does. A tip would be that, in terms of frequency, the plural form is overwhelmingly more used. Of course, it’s better to know and use it correctly, but in academic papers, there’s rarely a need to use uncountable nouns, so if you’re not sure what kind of noun N is, starting with the plural form will likely be correct.