All or Everything
All or Every
Everyday Expressions
Which is it?
100

I can't tell you _____

everything

"everything" is a pronoun that refers to every single thing and can stand alone

"all" can be used with plural or uncountable nouns to refer to the whole group

100

____ passengers must turn off their phones.


All

All goes with plural nouns

100

"You're standing on my foot." "Sorry, I didn't realize."

What else can we say?

I didn't know

I wasn't aware

100

They didn't realize the danger they were in. 

to become aware of or understand a situation

to achieve things you hope for or plan for


to become aware of or understand a situation

200

She ate ____ the cake. 

all

In order to use everything we need to replace cake

200

The meeting is in the science building. It begins at 8pm and ____ are welcome.



all 

We can use all, but not every, on its own without a noun. We use everyone/everybody/everything instead


200

"Do you realize that this is the third time you've forgotten your keys this week?" 

What else can we say?

Do you understand

Are you aware

Do you know

200

He realized the store would be closing in a few minutes.

to become aware of or understand a situation

to achieve things you hope for or plan for

to become aware of or understand a situation


300

Is that _____?

both

In this case they can both be used as pronouns

300

_____ donation is appreciated.



Every

singular noun

300

"I didn't realize how late I was until I looked at the time on my phone."

What else can we say?

I didn't know

I wasn't aware of 

300

He wanted to realize all of his goals before the age of 25. 

to become aware of or understand a situation

to achieve things you hope for or plan for

to achieve things you hope for or plan for

400

Thieves broke into our house and took _____. 

everything


400

I invited _____ my friends. 

All

We can use all and all of before some determiners, but we don’t use every before determiners:

  • Definite article : the.
  • Indefinite articles : a, an.
  • Demonstratives: this, that, these, those.
  • Pronouns and possessive determiners : my, your, his, her, its, our, their.
  • Quantifiers : a few, a little, much, many, a lot of, most, some, any, enough.
  • Numbers : one, ten, thirty.
400

"By the time I realized, it was already too late."

What else can we say?

I became aware of the situation


400

You do realize that you're doing it wrong. (more condescending) 

to become aware of or understand a situation

to achieve things you hope for or plan for

to become aware of or understand a situation

500

___ the students were gathering to protest. 

All

"All" can be followed by an article or noun

"Everything" cannot refer to "the students" but you can say "Everything the students were doing was right" because here it refers to all of the things they are doing, not to the students themselves. 

500

____ information can be saved in the computer memory.


All

We don’t use every with uncountable nouns

500

"You don't realize how lucky you are."

What else can we say?

don't understand

don't know

aren't aware of

500

After buying a Lamborghini and a mansion, James had finally realized his ambitions. 

to become aware of or understand a situation

to achieve things you hope for or plan for

to achieve things you hope for or plan for

M
e
n
u