XiaoDeng
all of us waves We're all going to crash! All of us waves are going to be nothing! (From a book) All of us waves, all of we waves, all of our waves, are they all acceptable?
Oct 16, 2019 10:08 AM
Answers · 7
2
No, all of us waves is the only one of those that seems to me to work at all. And the “all of us ____” phrase is something that is said sometimes, but it has always sounded awkward enough that I assumed it wasn’t proper. There’s nothing specific wrong with it other than sounding awkward. Rather than the figurative use in your sentence it is normally used to refer to some group of people and something about them or something they are going to do. For example: All of us Germans like to eat _____ All of us foodies are going to enjoy the meal.
October 16, 2019
2
For a bit of context ... “Then along comes another wave. It sees the first wave, looking grim, and it says to him, ‘Why do you look so sad?’ “ “The first wave says, ‘You don’t understand! We’re all going to crash! All of us waves are going to be nothing! Isn’t it terrible?’ “ “The second wave says, ‘No, you don’t understand. You’re not a wave, you’re part of the ocean.’” "All of us" is correct. Your other choices are incorrect. ''us' is being used as a determiner here. I don't think it's standard, but it's not uncommon and sounds natural to me. A similar example is, "All of us students are partying tonight". You could never say "All of we students ...". You would be understood, but it sounds bad. And the other option you mentioned ('All of our') just wouldn't make sense. It's one of those usages that will be unnatural to some and natural to others .... depends what part of the English speaking world you come from. In Australia it's natural and fairly common.
October 16, 2019
1
"All of us" is correct. If you want to specify what kind of people (or things) "us" refers to, you put the noun at the end: "all of us students," "all of us citizens," etc. It's not correct to say "all of we." The "all of us [plural noun]" construction is sort of clumsy, so in most cases, writers will prefer to say something like "We students (all) agree..." or "We citizens (all) expect..." In your example, though, I'm guessing that the author probably wanted to avoid writing "we waves," since that could be confusing (because "wave" can also be a verb, and the reader might get confused and think that the author intended to write "we wave"). "All of our waves" would also be fine, though the meaning would be different. "All of us waves" shows that we *are* the waves. "All of our waves" shows that the waves belong to us.
October 16, 2019
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