Talk:all during

I've never heard this before - is it standard English, or US/Australian/NZ? I don't think it's British English in any case. I would use "throughout" rather than this phrase. — Paul G 09:23, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I've heard it. I don't think it's specific to any one dialect, just generally uncommon. --Vladisdead 09:37, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Hmm doesn't sound familiar to me from AU English. We would probably say "all through" or "right through". — Hippietrail 12:41, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This may well be US, and regional at that, but a couple of the 36 hits from BNC (http://sara.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/saraWeb?qy=all+during) also showed this sense (most were some other usage of all concidentally followed by during). For example

... a pleasure that she had been deprived of all during her womanhood.
But it might have been better to read it, for all during the show, creeping into her mind at every lull ...
All during the night, over and over again, she had found it absurd that she'd ever considered herself a happy woman.
All during supper, eating a pork chop and cauliflower and mashed potatoes, Stephen had wanted to be alone.

-dmh 14:03, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Reading those examples, I wonder if there is any difference in meaning between "all during" and "during"? I kind of get the impression from above, that these all want to signify that no interruptions whatsoever took place. Is this correct? The example at during, "The shop was one of the few able to stay open during the war", seems to me (with usual reservations for my not-always-so-perfect grasp of English ;) to be much somewhat more vague: it was open at the beginning and at the end of the war, but does this sentence imply that it never ever was forced to close one single day? \Mike 21:12, 15 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

"during" (using the example) means something like "most of the time". Perhaps not even the beginning and the end, and it might have been forced to close a few times. But for the most part, it was open normally. Contrast: "all during" implies that there weren't any closings, it was open "all [the time] during" the war. But neither is entirely precise. Compare the definitions at during which has two senses; "all during" specifies the first. Robert Ullmann 21:24, 15 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

Yes, I'm aware that "all during" is closest in meaning to the first definition of "during", but I was rather looking for the differences, if any, between that first definition (from where I got the example) and "all during". And if I understand your argument correctly, there is a (slight) difference, with "all during" being a stronger notion than "during" (def 1) which is stronger than "during" (def 2). (And yes, of course "never ever" was an exaggeration :) \Mike 21:39, 15 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

yes, "all during" is an emphasis of "during" (1), as well as excluding the second sense:

Children were born during the war (sense 1, of course there were some)
Children were born all during the war (from beginning to end and every day in between, stronger than first example)
Theodore Kaczynski was born during the war (sense 2 of during; did you know that? ;-)

Robert Ullmann 21:52, 15 January 2007 (UTC)Reply