Tell me more ×
English Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 1 down vote favorite

The context is:

The blog for all who want to learn German.

I feel like this is not correct, but the only alternative I can think of is:

The blog for all those who want to learn German.

While just being one word longer this feel boring and stiff to me. Is the original sentence perhaps grammatically correct, after all?

share|improve this question
5  
The original line is fine (though it's not a sentence). – JLG Apr 12 '12 at 12:23
1  
@JLG - And should probably be "The blog for all who want German to learn" ;-) – mgb Apr 12 '12 at 15:07
2  
@mgb: Or rather 'The blog for all who German to learn want.' – Barrie England Apr 12 '12 at 17:40
@BarrieEngland - "Only a German is so discourteous to his verbs"? – mgb Apr 12 '12 at 20:51
@mgb: In fact, German verbs come second in a main clause. It's only in subordinate clauses that they go to the end. – Barrie England Apr 12 '12 at 20:57
show 4 more comments

closed as general reference by FumbleFingers, MετάEd, Mahnax, tchrist, Mitch Sep 12 '12 at 19:48

This question is too basic; it can be definitively and permanently answered by a single link to a standard internet reference source designed specifically to find that type of information. See the FAQ for guidance on how to improve it.

2 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

Insofar as "one" is commonly accepted to mean a single specific person, "all" is reasonably considered a well-understood demonstrative pronoun meaning a group of individuals. "All those", thus, becomes a redundant pair of pronouns ("those" also being a well understood demonstrative pronoun meaning a group of individuals)` and "the people' being, effectively, an appositive of "all".

So, "all who want to learn German" seems as acceptable to me as "all those who want to learn German", but "all wanting to learn German" would be equally, if not a bit more, acceptable, though, I might choose "wishing" over "wanting".

share|improve this answer
up vote 1 down vote

Building on what @Carlo_R. and @JLG have said, it would seem to me that if you can replace all with people (or all people) and still have your tagline be grammatical, then all is fine on its own.

share|improve this answer
I'd just quibble that it's not necessarily "all people". I could say, "There are many books on my shelves. All were purchased from Amazon." Meaning "all the books" of course. – Jay Apr 12 '12 at 14:43
@Jay, agreed. The extra clarity was merely to illustrate. – zpletan Apr 12 '12 at 18:00

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.