702 - ‘All of a Sudden’ or ‘All of the Sudden’? ‘Baited’ or ‘Bated’ Breath?
Grammar Girl: For Writers and Language Lovers.
Mignon Fogarty, Inc.
4.5 • 2.9K Ratings
🗓️ 4 July 2019
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
I had a listener insist the wrong way of saying "suddenly" was right, so I had to look into it. Also, I'll help you spell "bated breath" properly (and explain why it looks so weird).
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Gramer Girl, here I'm Mignon Fogarty and you can think of me as your friendly guide to |
| 0:09.2 | the English language. |
| 0:10.9 | Writing, history, rules, and cool stuff. |
| 0:13.7 | Today I have a meeting middle about the phrase all of a sudden, and a quick and dirty tip |
| 0:18.4 | about baited breath. |
| 0:20.0 | Let's get started. |
| 0:24.0 | A few months ago in a Slack channel for podcasters, one of my friends posted a grammar |
| 0:28.6 | gripe. |
| 0:29.6 | He wrote, quote, this grammar pet peeve has been bugging me a lot lately because I've |
| 0:34.9 | seen it used in very prominent places, all of a sudden. |
| 0:39.5 | It's supposed to be all of the sudden, but simply saying suddenly sounds a whole lot more |
| 0:44.2 | grown up. |
| 0:46.7 | It was interesting because he had it backwards. |
| 0:50.1 | All of us sudden is the right way to say it, but when he heard it that way, apparently |
| 0:54.8 | it bugged him. |
| 0:56.6 | I've occasionally gotten questions about the phrase over the years, but in the week |
| 1:00.8 | after my friend raised the issue, I got two or three more questions about these all |
| 1:05.2 | of something sudden phrases. |
| 1:08.3 | So I decided it was time to look into it more deeply than I had when I just gave people |
| 1:12.5 | simple answers before. |
| 1:14.6 | First, all of the sudden is definitely a phrase you should avoid. |
| 1:19.8 | Garner's modern English usage includes an entry on all of the sudden, and pegs at its |
... |
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