A linguistic survey

[Jaiden]

London Ontario Canada, none of them were

[Jonathon]

Welcome to the forum, Jaiden.

I admit that the Canadian hypothesis probably isn't very valid; I'm just drawing on my first memorable encounter with the construction, which came from a couple of Canadian PBS shows. I just remember being weirded out when someone would say something like "Everybody doesn't like chocolate ice cream, so let's get vanilla." I'd think to myself, "Don't they mean 'Not everybody likes chocolate'?" Of course, it could've just been the writers or something.

[Jaiden]

Thank you  

I haven't heard that phrasing around here, but I'm in southern Ontario and we have fairly "normal" speech (we don't call people "ducky" for example)

[imogen]

I chose the second one.  In fact, I couldn't understand how the first one *could* be a valid intepretation until I read through the thread.

I have never heard the first interpretation here.  Although to clarify I'm not sure I have ever heard the phrase itself here either.


Thems are weird people, ducky.

[Annie Subjunctive]

I voted for the first one because it was the closest I could get to "not all of them were," which is the only way I would have ever thought to translate that expression.

I grew up in Colorado with one parent who spoke Texan and now live in Montana.  And I can't recall ever actually hearing the phrase "all of them weren't" in spoken language.

So maybe I don't count.

[Jonathon]

But the question isn't "How would you say it?" It's "If you heard this (or something similar), how would you take it?"

[Annie Subjunctive]

In that case, I stand by my choice.

[Jonathon]

Okay. Just making sure that the question and answers were as clear as possible.

Edit: Okay, now that I'm more awake and have reread your answer, I understand what you were saying. Your ideal answer would have been "not all of them were," but "some of them were" is close enough to work. So if someone said, "Everybody doesn't like chocolate ice cream," you would assume that maybe some people do, just not each and every person?

[Porter]

If someone said, "Everybody doesn't like chocolate ice cream," I would probably reply by saying "You mean that not everybody likes it, not that everybody doesn't like it."

It would be fairly clear what they mean, but it's still wrong, in my view.  Just like I know what is meant by "I ain't never done nothing wrong".

[Sheila]

I went with none of the above because "all of them weren't" is what it means. Though, I could probably be swayed to another opinion if I knew what they weren't.

I don't think the given phrase specifies that none of them were. Some of them could be, just not all of them. It doesn't specify that, either, though, so I don't know.

[Icarus]

It would be fairly clear what they mean, but it's still wrong, in my view. Just like I know what is meant by "I ain't never done nothing wrong."

I don't agree that it's wrong (and certainly not in the manner of the example you gave). I can think of situations where it would be quite acceptable, and the verbal emphasis (which we aren't getting here) would make the meaning crystal clear.

[Porter]

I think that it would be wrong to use that wording if you meant that not everbody likes ice cream.

[sarcasticmuppet]

If someone said, "Everybody doesn't like chocolate ice cream," I would probably reply by saying "What the crap is wrong with people who don't like chocolate ice cream?"  

[Annie Subjunctive]

And this is why I love the muppet