Comments on: All told

By: R Octavous

R Octavous — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 21:24:33 +0000

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

By: Doug Knight

Doug Knight — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 19:44:06 +0000

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.

By: Scott

Scott — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 11:34:16 +0000

Time to call Will Shortz at NPR.

By: Sonja

Sonja — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 10:12:50 +0000

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?

By: David Bergerson

David Bergerson — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 11:12:33 +0000

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.

By: jon

jon — Tue, 01 May 2012 11:28:17 +0000

hmmmm–it’s not “chuck” it out the window?

By: admin

admin — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 05:37:03 +0000

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.

By: John Reed

John Reed — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 17:01:35 +0000

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.”

By: Steve-Annie

Steve-Annie — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 00:02:04 +0000

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!

By: Cliff

Cliff — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 15:40:11 +0000

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?

By: Brendan

Brendan — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 18:03:49 +0000

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

By: Brendan

Brendan — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 17:53:04 +0000

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.”