The Trouble With “All”

At the risk of offending more friends via quibbles over words, I must confess that the carelessness with which the word “all” is used, or implied, wearies me. Seeing many freedom-oriented individuals—who, it seems logical to think, really should know better—do so therefore calls into question for me their willingness to think deeply before writing, and/or to write precisely.

I will forego my usual trip to the dictionary in this case; would it not be pure pedantry to do otherwise? Yet I do sometimes wonder if some writers grok what “all” means ... when it’s so liberally used, and so obviously misused, what else can one conclude? One of the current catch-phrases in economic circles is that “we are all Keynesians now”. Oh really? Then whence comes this essay: ‘Atlas Shrugged’: From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years? I submit that a true Keynesian believer could not write that as anything but farce; and the tone (along with the byline) makes it clear it is not farcical. And I am most emphatically not a Keynesian—so no, we are not all Keynesians. Not even close.

Biologists used to categorize living things into two kingdoms, plant and animal. But then they found that some organisms—protozoans—didn’t fit into either one very well. Today varying numbers of kingdoms can be used. It seems the closer one looks, the more complex things really are.

And it is thus for humans. While people used to think of the sexes as two discrete categories (with hermaphrodites probably being considered physical aberrations, prior to the advent of genetics) organized by anatomical features, what defines one’s sex today may include one’s genetic profile, gender identity, gender roles, and sexual orientation. Now we know that a genetic profile isn’t always either XX or XY: individuals with XXY, XYY, XXYY, XXX, Turner syndrome (absence of part or all of the second X chromosome), and fragile X syndrome have been identified in humans ... and I’ve probably missed a few others. So even the simplest parsing of all humans into male or female is shown to be inadequate in some cases.

If it’s so difficult to classify all humans along biological lines, how much more difficult it must be to find behavioral, cognitive, and/or emotional universalities amongst us. And yet many authors blithely assert something like, “All people know that ...”. No, they don’t. “All” people includes those who’ve already lived and died, and all infants; I seriously doubt there is something that every single person who has ever lived or is currently alive knew or knows. Some try to dodge this by modifying the all, as in, “All right-thinking people”, which begs the question of defining what “right thinking” is.

Some readers might be thinking that I’m overlooking an obvious categorization that I should’ve thought of, when I started my genetics tangent up there: all humans are human because we have the same genetic pattern! Except that we don’t ... sometimes extra chromosomes pop up. And how, exactly, are humans defined, in order to distinguish Homo sapiens from its predecessors? If a theory that Neanderthals and other human ancestors interbred is true, then maybe such a neat definition isn’t possible there, either. But I am getting very far afield ...

Some will object that they use “all” for dramatic effect, probably as in the Keynesian example. But the word is so overused that such effect is likely rare any more. There are better ways to achieve drama with one’s words, anyway; yes, they also require a little more time and effort, but they’re two investments that often separate good writers from hacks.

The purpose of writing is communication. Successful communication requires some degree of precision in using words. Given the challenges attendant in that effort, why make things harder by using a word that is overworked and clearly does not apply?

That is all.


/me ducks the shoes, staplers, coffee mugs, etc., being thrown at me