Semper Ubi Sub Ubi
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alvin arnold:
May 10th, 2008 at 1:33 am
What a treat to find your discussion of “all told/all tolled”. Growing up, I was taught (by whom?) that the expression “all told” was a contraction/variation of “all totalled” and that it originated in the accounting field. My wife, an accountant, has never heard of such a thing. Since you don’t mention “all totalled” in your presentation of “all told”, can I assume it’s not even a quasi-eggcorn, and simply wrong? Or is there something to it?
Regards, Alvin Arnold
Craig Peterson:
October 10th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Friends;
Told and tolled appear to be from the same root. Afterall when a bell tolls the hours it is counting them out. Perhapse we should not look at this as two words but one word with two spellings.
John Reed:
December 18th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
And yet, as in the tolling of a bell, we also have the “death toll,” specifically referring to a count or sum of the dead. “All tolled” clearly seems to be preferable.
Bill Hatcher:
December 30th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
I agree. For though “told” and “tell” may be justifiably archaic forms of “to count”, it is, well, archaic. Perhaps the phrase and its meaning should be allowed to grow and change, becoming “all tolled”?
Aaron Poehler:
May 11th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
“All tolled” is hardly preferable, and is clearly a minority corruption. Let it go.
Sherry Wolf:
May 19th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
I am in shock! The correct idiom is “all told”!!! The example cited, ”All told, twelve football players were arrested” to me seems to suggest that the football players were counted, there were 12 of them, hence, “All tolled/counted, twelve football players were arrested.” To me it seems a stretch to say the meaning of the phrase is something like “not to mince words/to tell you the whole truth, 12 football players were arrested,” ALL TOLD.
Sherry Wolf, M.A., Teaching English As A Second Language, Georgetown University, 1971
Michael:
May 30th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
I like the explanation… but I’m curious to hear the justification of “Death toll” – and others like it. If “toll” works in “death toll”, then would it not also be justifiable in “all tolled”?
Steve Jenson:
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:31 am
I’m still just as confused as ever. To me, both approaches make sense. “All Told”, meaning “after everything has been said, the result or outcome is _____”. And, “All Tolled”, meaning “after everything has been added up/weighed & measured, the result or outcome (or path forward) is _____”. They both work for me.
Harold Ethington:
June 24th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
After gathering cows from various pens, getting them in the truck and heading to the auction, my Kentucky Dad would likely say something like “All toll, we got 18 head.”
The years go by, I leave the farm, find myself writing for a national magazine, and I use the phrase “$5 million here, $10 million there, all toll, we have $15 million dollars tied up in obsolete inventory…”.
Yes. “All toll”, just like Dad, and Uncle Ralph, and the whole family would say anytime they had to sum up parts into a whole.
Makes perfect sense to me. “Toll” is a contraction for “Totaled”!
Helen:
August 9th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
May be I am wrong but the theme looks as follows:
should we remember of numbers when talking and of words when summarizing/finalizing them in two possible ways: to make smb/smth in or to make smb/smth out.
To make it sound academically one can propose:
All told, weighted and counted.
What we need is King Solomon’s books on wisdom and the Bible’s narration on his house-building. What he has left unweighted and non-counted were pagan idols allowed in Jerusalem. They were foul language the people fouled their hands with.
What we have is two languages: Abel’s and Cain’s.
TheMiddleMan:
September 15th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
It seems as if both spellings are arguably correct. One, (“all told”) appears to be the preferred form, at least in this culture. Very often the preferred spelling can change simply based on the culture/country that you are in. One example of this is the word defense. I’ve recently learned that in some English speaking countries, Canada being one, the preferred way to spell this word is with a ‘c’ as in defence. Since both sides have good arguments, I say just let both be acceptable and chalk another one up to the craziness of the English language.
ChaosOrdeal:
September 20th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
I wonder if this is regional. I’m sure that many years ago I heard people use the phrase “toll up” to mean “add up,” but I cannot now find examples of that usage. Oddly, I’m willing to accept “all told” as preferable, but it makes me dislike the expression, and I will probably no longer use it. Although it may have once meant “all counted,” it now implies “Now that I have told you everything, . . .” which seems impertinent.
Bernie Kasupski:
October 10th, 2009 at 12:36 am
The term “eggcorn” was coined in 2003 by linguist Geoffrey Pullum in regard to someone online using “eggcorn” instead of “acorn.” The key feature of an “eggcorn” is that the substitution makes a certain weird sense, as in the case of “eggcorn” itself.
The use of pronouns “himself” “itself” “themselves,” etc.as “itself” is used in the above example drive me to distraction. What does “itself” add to your point? Wouldn’t “…as in the case of “eggcorn.” have sufficed?
The president himself said…?????
What part of speech is “himself” in that example?
Let’s put a stop to this nonsense! Please, I’m begging you.
Josh of Boots:
November 23rd, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Use of “itself” is often redundant. It’s not the only example of redundancy in the English language, and redundancy is a feature that aids in making communication more robust. Certainly redundancy has less use in a written missive, since one can always go back and re-read an important word. However, even readers will place unconscious weight on words and concepts that appear more than once, no matter how carefully they scrutinize every word. And let’s face it, some readers, or all readers some of the time, are just plain lazy and want to get to the end of the sentence, and it becomes a kind of in-the-head audible script.
Redundancy out of the way, there is still room for the word “itself” to have logical weight and value, since it is distinguishing the further use of the same word “eggcorn” from its previous uses, and acknowledging that the same example is being used twice, thus preventing confusion.
If one is attempting to compress piece of written language, then it probably does make sense to remove redundant bits. Definite and indefinite articles seem prime candidates also. And of course, one should bear in mind possibility that “itself” is not always necessary to convey logical thought with appropriate amount of weight. “Itself” could indeed distract from other important parts of sentence.
As to the question of what part of speech “himself” functions as in
“The president himself said . . .”
it is an adverb, in my opinion, because it modifies the clause “the president said”. It indicates that the president was not necessarily quoting someone else, and it emphasizes the role of the president in the sentence. It also serves as a defense against possible accusations that what the president said was against his character or nature.
Take the example:
“The boy himself said he threw the stone.”
It wouldn’t be in the boy’s nature to admit to something he didn’t do, so this accusation is anticipated and defended against by the use of the adverb “himself”.
Joe Bennett:
December 2nd, 2009 at 2:47 pm
This is all noncents.
Evil E:
January 2nd, 2010 at 6:28 pm
The above comment wraps it all up…lol. Very clever comments and fun reading. I landed here because I read “all told” in an article and could have sworn it was wrong since I have believed the phrase to be “all tolled” for my whole life.
PJ Griffin:
January 30th, 2010 at 2:08 pm
I don’t think its “all told” or “all tolled”. I believe the option that’s missing is “all to’aled”, a British (or possibly a Cockney) contraction of “all totaled”.
Dale:
February 27th, 2010 at 6:09 pm
I conducted some research just now and I found many, many sites that corroborated the “all told” etymology and others that argue between “all told/all tolled”. However, I found neither no site that discussed “all totaled/all to’aled”, nor have I ever read or heard that derivation before.
“All told” is correct. “All tolled” is an “eggcorn” that apparently makes some of you feel good, but is incorrect. “All to’aled” has never existed.
Christopher Beck:
May 6th, 2010 at 10:36 am
A little far-fetched, perhaps, but we’ve all heard the expression “ringing up a sale.” One could easily associate the summing up of things with the sound of a bell – not exactly tolling perhaps, but, hey.
Robert Klein:
May 12th, 2010 at 3:32 am
I thought folks here might find it interesting and even instructive to know that Hebrew (both biblical and modern) has the exact same phenomenon! The Hebrew root S-P-R (though the ‘P’ is often pronounced ‘F’) forms the basis of “l’sapeir” – to tell, as well as “lispor” – to count. Other cognates include “sefer” – book, “mispar” – number, “sipur” – story, and “s’fira” – enumeration. Also interesting is that the root also means to cut away, as in a haircut (tisporet). Perhaps this is a link to “separate”, and hence the common denominator of telling and tallying (supposedly not cognates, BTW) is that one methodically and in a specific order removes from the whole one portion at a time. That would explain the connection between telling a story by recounting each part of the tale and counting a collection of items by paring off one item at a time.
Ramona:
July 3rd, 2010 at 6:49 pm
I am a “word woman” and I believe that “all tolled” makes sense along with “all totaled” . “All told” sounds autocratic and imperious (as in “It’s my opinion and interpretation”) rather than a math summary with numbers.
Bob Dobolina:
July 12th, 2010 at 12:32 pm
Let’s learn to leave the folk etymology behind and stick to known facts, K? It’s “all told”. I don’t like it either, but them’s the facts. We learn these things by searching our literature for the earliest uses of a phrase–not by reasoning things out.
m2:
July 13th, 2010 at 4:19 pm
I have come across “all told” many times but have always believed it to be “all tolled.” I confess that I am a bit disappointed to find out that “all told” is correct. Aside from it making my belief wrong (which I never appreciate), it just seems a bit less poetic.
Paul M:
August 19th, 2010 at 12:59 pm
Whoa. Did anyone actually read the explanation of “Told” and “Tolled?” Most of the arguments here imply that since “tolled” means to count, the phrase makes sense. The explanation clearly states that “tolled” does NOT mean to count, and NEVER HAS. It is misused in that sense; therefore, “all tolled” does NOT make sense!
Angela:
August 19th, 2010 at 4:56 pm
Thank you for this description. I will admit I had been thinking it was “tolled” but am happy to find an explanation that makes sense.
I am usually a stickler for correct grammar and spelling but often find myself looking up phrases that we’ve always heard and taken for granted as correct.
Just reinforces the adage: “you learn something new every day” :)
Richard Rohling:
September 13th, 2010 at 12:52 pm
I’m going to stick with all tolled, sorry but it just makes good sense! Next you’ll be telling me I should say “home in” when the phrase is “hone in”-as in “the Twins are looking to hone in on their 3rd World Series Championship this fall”! All tolled they will have won 3 World Series in their history!
mike:
October 11th, 2010 at 11:23 am
Even though the noun form of “toll” can be used to reference a “total”, the verb form never means that. “Death toll” means “the cost, as measured in dead bodies”, like the death toll from a storm or whatever. No one ever says “when the bodies were tolled”–that would mean someone was going to each body and exacting a tax from them, or attempting to use them as bells.
No one ever uses “toll” as a verb to mean (the verb form of) “total”. Yes, a death toll is equal to the total number of dead bodies. The toll of a toll road is equal to the amount of money you pay, which is a quantity you could arrive at by addition. But the verb form of toll means
to ring a bell
or to announce by ringing a bell, or whatever.
You “exact a toll” or something “takes a toll on you”. The
The fact that “death toll” and “the total number of dead” refer to the same number seems to be leading people to jump to the conclusion that “toll” _means_ total. Total is also used as a verb (the act of adding up) and a noun (the result you got when you added them up). It’s possible that people are making the mistake
Toll, in the sense being used there, means “price”. What was the “price” of this battle in terms of dead bodies? We call that the death toll. We don’t say “we tolled the dead bodies, there were 80″. It doesn’t make sense, it’s not used this way. You’re using the fact that you’ve always thought “all told” was “all tolled” to backfit the idea that “toll” is used as a verb to mean “total”. It isn’t.
Andrew:
October 15th, 2010 at 4:28 am
Wow. This is such an interesting site! Glad I found you.
I came here looking for an answer to the burning question, and got what I came for. I was about to swallow the whole explanation when I read the rebuttals and got to thinking. I’m going to chalk the use of tolled/told up to vernacular and personal preference.
On one hand, “all tolled” does carry with it (to me) the understanding that a count of sort was made. All totaled (or do you spell it with 2 letters “L”?). All tallied. And in that respect it makes perfect sense numerically.
I’m from Northeastern Illinois (Chicago area) and that’s how I learned it. Perhaps it’s a vernacular thing.
“All told,” on the other hand, appears to refer to the relating or “telling” of something. Would you say that a “telling look” means the face someone makes when he is doing math in his head? So “all told” sounds more like “story complete”, and makes sense in the more figurative setting: “All told, we had a lot of fun bowling!”
And of course there’s the psychological aspect. Very few people like to accept that things they were taught – or the things they ‘know’ – are wrong, so they stick with, and ofttimes defend the way they are accustomed to. I guess I’m one of those folks too.
@Josh of Boots: I think when people use “himself” or any of its kin as an adjunct to a noun/subject it is redundancy for redundancy’s sake – sort of like a verbal underscore (“An added extra plus”). Inflection can make the difference between redundancy and clarification. “The president himself said …” with the emphasis on “himself” would clarify the statement by indicating it was “not his press secretary”, whereas without any special emphasis it might only be melodramatic redundancy.
Some people – especially those who write “B” movies – think that saying something twice gives it more weight. “I… must… MUST disconnect… the bomb… and save… mankind!”
Just my too cents ;)
Andrew:
October 15th, 2010 at 4:48 am
@Christopher Beck: Early cash registers had a bell inside that would ring when certain keys were depressed. Also, when the keys were depressed, metal tabs marked with prices or methods of payment (“Cash,” “Charge,” “No Sale,” “Tax,” “Total,” etc.) would pop up and display in a window at the top of the register. “Ringing up a sale” is likely a reference to the ringing of the bell and the rising up of the totals that came from using the cash register each time a sale was made. Nowadays folks use the term even when the transaction isn’t conducted on a cash register.
The bell disappeared from cash registers once the machines became electronic. I suppose to bring the phrase up to date we should say “beep up a sale.”
Lou:
December 2nd, 2010 at 12:25 pm
Interesting discussion. I am a lawyer who used the term “all tolled” in a draft of a legal brief. I wasn’t sure whether I should use “all tolled” or “all told,” so I put that question into Google. Your site came up at the top of the list, and your explanation and the previous comments greatly aided my understanding of the question and answers. My conclusion, however, was to remove the phrase completely because I did not want the judge to spend his time considering the proper use of the phrase rather than the point of the brief. I am almost certain, however, to “entertain” my family at the dinner table with my knowledge of the arguments pro and con for each version!
Bill Swanson:
December 15th, 2010 at 1:18 pm
Dear Word Detective:
In your exposition regarding Geoffrey Pullum’s creating of the word “eggcorn” in 2003, I believe you are missing a very central point, which is that is also a devilishly good pun on the linguistic term “inkhorn,” which Wikipedia defines as “…any foreign borrowing (or a word created from existing word roots by an English speaker) into English deemed to be unnecessary or overly pretentious.”
Linguists such as Pullum use “inkhorn” and “inkhorn term” all the time, and there’s no question he would have been aware of the word. So “eggcorn” is actually a malapropism inside a pun — or maybe a pun inside a malapropism, I dunno. One or the other. But in any event, one should be aware that an “eggcorn” term plays off the phonics as well as the inclusion of the notion of pretentiousness aspect of what an eggcorn phrase does, and it is self-parodying. I mean, wow. That’s one really deep, twisted, masterfully done neologism. Quite breath-taking, the more you delve into it.
jill:
March 10th, 2011 at 1:58 pm
I’ve always used all told. He did a clear and concise explanation of it. Times change and some words become less popular, but that doesn’t mean we chunk them out the window for what’s hot and new. Keep doing that and we may well forget what language we started off speaking all together.
OTRsaCSG:
March 15th, 2011 at 2:29 pm
All told. Strangely, I’ve never heard of Englishmen having this confusion (although I don’t know the nationalities of the commenters). I think this is a classic case of people never before having seen the phrase in print writing it down they way they assumed it would be. I agree that this corruption should be let go, otherwise we’ll start accepting phrases like “could of/would of/should of” (which are alarming in their pervasiveness) in the name of allowing the English language to “evolve”.
Dean:
April 3rd, 2011 at 11:55 am
Interesting posts. It’s always been “all told” where I’m from. The thought that it might be “all tolled” never entered my mind until I read the article. Personally, “all tolled” reminds me of seeing the usage “car pull” instead of “car pool”, which may “make sense” but also makes me cringe. Regarding redundancies,(I’ve used them myself)I recall a friend’s joke; “The crab puffs were so good I had three myself”…”So, how many did you have if you count everyone?”
Luke D:
April 15th, 2011 at 5:07 pm
Once upon a time, “google” was just a noun. I can appreciate that this will make the purists cringe (I for one refuse to accept “fantabulous” or “ginormous” into my vocabulary), but I’m going to verb toll.
Toll
-verb
1. To count. Origin -> 5 minutes ago
ex. “I told y’all to toll them taters so as we knows how much vittles we’ll have for supper.”
So maybe “all tolled” is wrong now, but let’s give it some time and google it again in ten years.
susan:
June 4th, 2011 at 6:37 pm
I am a court reporter and would just like to thank you for the clarification. I will have your website in my favorites, as these type of problems come up in my depositions daily.
Janet:
July 30th, 2011 at 6:20 pm
All told, I’m with you.
Don:
September 21st, 2011 at 9:22 am
Ah, but it is “home in.” William Safire said so, even though candidate George W. Bush used “hone in.” Which would you prefer as your word expert?
Janice:
September 21st, 2011 at 9:15 pm
Yikes!!! I have to agree with Harold Ethington from his June 24th, 2009 comment. Let me guess. If he hadn’t specifically said Kentucky, I would have sworn that his folks were from New England. Regardless, this is such a conundrum that I think I shall refrain from using this saying in any written form. Too bad, though. I always liked it. At least I can still use it in oral encounters and no one will be able to judge my useage/spelling.
Janice:
September 21st, 2011 at 9:18 pm
Just an additional thought. Why not just use “in toto” in lieu of “all tol…..”? Works for me.
Jonnie:
September 28th, 2011 at 3:36 am
Call me wind because I am albsoutley blown away.
Mandes:
October 10th, 2011 at 3:38 pm
Fascinating. I am about to send an email with the expression in question and still am not sure whether to use told or tolled, although I am leaning toward told since I find tolled to be pretentious.
Furthermore, eggcorn is not a true eggcorn. Using eggcorn for acorn results from the mispronunciation of egg as Aig, i.e., the long-A sound. Egg should be pronounce with the short e, ehgg. Then there is no confusion, because nobody, but nobody says ehcorn for acorn. (P.s., somepeople say Laig for leg. A good example of this is the Jeff Bridges character in “The Door in the Floor,” which I highly recommend)
AnWulf:
November 22nd, 2011 at 8:11 pm
Don is correct. It is “home in” not “hone in”. You can hone your skills but you home in on a target. Aircraft follow homing beacons.
AnWulf:
November 22nd, 2011 at 8:14 pm
Good answer Mike!
Soothly, I’d never seen it as “all tolled” before reading this.
Brendan:
December 14th, 2011 at 12:53 pm
and you pay a toll based on the number of vehicles or axles, or weight…
The toll to ferry sheep across a river was based on the number of sheep in the herd, etc. So using toll as an indication of counting, as in “all counted up” seems perfectly correct to me and those who use “all told” are just unaware that the word is spelled “tolled.”
Brendan:
December 14th, 2011 at 1:03 pm
Mike,
You are arguing against toll as meaning count, but then don’t support the use of told instead.
Using your argument, nobody ever says “when the bodies were told” either, nor do they say “we told the dead bodies and there were 80 of them.”
Do we?
Brendan
Cliff:
March 5th, 2012 at 10:40 am
Toll – An amount or extent of loss or destruction.
Wow, sounds a lot like counting. Just because a word might have more than two meanings, doesn’t mean you can just decide to exclude one all ‘willy-nilly’.
“All tolled, my week sucked”, means “add up all the [figurative] destruction I suffered last week, and it sucks”. This is clearly correct usage.
“All told, it turns out he was being fair”, means “once all the story is known, the whole reveals something the individual parts can not”. This is also correct usage (including the rare “can not” in two words, since “can” was also a real possibility).
So now we have two separate idioms, which mean different things (yet somewhat similar), but sound the same. What will English think of next?
Steve-Annie:
March 15th, 2012 at 8:02 pm
Wow. Reading some of these comments, I’m afraid that pretty soon we’ll all be saying “they succame to their opponents” because, after all, it sounds right. It isn’t, and neither is “all tolled.” It’s “all told” and always has been. You can’t just change English usage every time you find out you were wrong about something!
John Reed:
March 16th, 2012 at 1:01 pm
Indeed, long before the era of automobiles, it was common for toll bridges to list an animal-specific menu of crossing fees. So if the rancher came across with 2 horses, 3 head of cattle, 4 goats and and a dog, his “toll” would be the sum of the fees for each animal, plus himself. “All tolled, I paid 57 cents to cross the river.”
admin:
April 21st, 2012 at 1:37 am
FWIW, here’s the relevant bit from the OED (under “tell,” verb):
(d) all told: when all are counted; in all.
1850 H. T. Cheever Whale & his Captors ii. 43 They are four hundred all told.
1858 J. S. Mansfield in Mercantile Marine Mag. 5 19 The hands numbered 19 all told.
1885 Ld. Wolseley in Times 22 Jan. 5/4 Stewart’s force was about 1,500 all told.
The phrase “all tolled” literally does not occur in the OED.
jon:
May 1st, 2012 at 7:28 am
hmmmm–it’s not “chuck” it out the window?
David Bergerson:
June 6th, 2012 at 7:12 am
Suggestion….since languages evolve (iPad wasn’t a word 10 years ago) and since most of us now reason that tolled makes sense, then just keep using it. Then in 50 years when the question is revisited, the fact will be that popular opinion changed as people preferred tolled and the spelling morphed over time. Be the future you want to see.
Sonja:
July 10th, 2012 at 6:12 am
Wow, this is all very umfangreich. My question, stabbing in quickly from the side: in the song “Hangover” there is a line “drink until I’m told up” Does that mean drink until I’m even? or think its enough or is it a type error and should be until I throw-up or …..?
Have the property prices now dropped drastically with the question?
Scott:
August 13th, 2012 at 7:34 am
Time to call Will Shortz at NPR.
Doug Knight:
September 24th, 2012 at 3:44 pm
Why is it that Americans blame Canada for so many things that we have nothing to do with (like helping terrorists gain easy access to the US, for example)?
The word “defence” originated in Britain; the progenitor of the English language. As we are an English speaking nation we inherited this spelling, although in modern times, thanks to our close association with the US, “defense” is also considered correct and is likely more commonly used than the British spelling.
For the record, we didn’t invent the Metric System either.
R Octavous:
October 16th, 2012 at 5:24 pm
It’s fine. It clarifies the possible confusion arising from the fact that “eggcorn” is itself an eggcorn. See usage 2 below.
it·self
pronoun?/it?self/?
1. Used as the object of a verb or preposition to refer to a thing or animal previously mentioned as the subject of the clause
– his horse hurt itself
– wisteria was tumbling over itself
2. Used to emphasize a particular thing or animal mentioned
– the roots are several inches long, though the plant itself is only a foot tall
3. Used after a quality to emphasize what a perfect example of that quality someone or something is
– Mrs. Vincent was kindness itself
Candy:
June 5th, 2013 at 10:13 am
OMG… so I’m right AND wrong? I’m so conflicted!
-GrammarGramma
qazwiz:
July 17th, 2013 at 12:01 am
the phrase “the President himself said” emphasizes the fact that the source is the specific person mentioned not a lackey reading a press release or a third party who supposedly witnessed such a statement (aka a first person statement)
at one time such a distinction added great weight over an account that might later be repudiated should the supposed admission prove embarrassing or be repudiated if the stated future facts not come to flourishion. Unfortunately current political practices and massive media coverage have even brought first person accounts into disfavor with statements like “No New Taxes” and “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” both of which were stated by the respective presidents themselves
qazwiz:
July 17th, 2013 at 12:16 am
I think you are being a little thin skinned about this…. defence or defense? Google is telling me that the first one is misspelled. but if i had an UK dictionary queued for the colourful differences it would be the other way around. I think I will stay on de fence on this one :P
qazwiz:
July 17th, 2013 at 12:46 am
“all told” is a way to skip most facts but show that they are taken into account anyway.
consider a multiple-car pile-up on the expressway, interstate, autobaun, tollway, or what ever word your country uses to indicate a road, usually set off for single direction traffic, to facilitate high volume travel.
an account of the devastation could describe each and every vehicle, how it was mangled and how many persons were killed, how many were injured and possibly how many “miraculously escaped injury”…. *yawn* ho-hum
can you imagine trying to read such an account that tries to TELL ALL that happened?
but instead if two dozen near repetitive accounts it is much less boring to read a couple accounts and finish with:
ALL TOLD, in the 24 car accident there were 38 injuries sent to the hospital (11 in critical condition) dozens of minor scrapes and bruises and 5 pronounced dead on the scene
UPDATE: as of 30 minutes before press time, 5 are still in critical condition with 9 more expected to be released tomorrow in absence of further complications all others have been treated and released
Woody:
October 28th, 2013 at 10:44 am
It would seem that you failed to read the explanation above. It is not a matter of opinion.
Jonathan:
December 5th, 2013 at 11:12 am
Excellent, detailed explanation for a misconception I’ve had for many years. I really appreciate knowing the etymology of the word/expression.
Kattales:
March 12th, 2014 at 11:59 am
What a wonderful discussion! Thank you! All told,I am now much better informed on the subject.
Colleen:
September 23rd, 2014 at 10:54 pm
I mirror the person who said wonderful discussion. Thank you for taking the time to write this and post it.
Nicky:
January 28th, 2015 at 10:45 pm
Well, that ‘told’ me! I am embarrassed to admit that I’ve been incorrectly correcting people for years on this point.
Bonnie:
March 27th, 2015 at 1:14 pm
Thank you all for an informative, interesting and rather entertaining 40 minutes. All told, I myself rather enjoyed myself. (Tongue in cheek???)
Docter Mo:
March 5th, 2018 at 1:03 pm
I frequently pondered the two written forms when encountered, and surmised them both to have been a bastardization (“eggcorn” is a much nicer term) of what I assumed was the original spoken ” All totaled” which when spoken with a country accent could have been heard as almost a contraction: “all to’led” / “all to’ld” – dropping the middle “t” sound.
I will keep claiming I’m correct – all to’ld it still sounds plausible. ##HeHeHe##