My Grammatic(al) Crisis

The other day, a newspaper quoted a Brigham-Young professor as saying “all of a sudden, I...” Though I’ve heard this before, it still looked and sounded strange to me, as I’ve always said “all of the sudden,” but, curious as to the origins of this alternate, and, I assumed, slang pronunciation, I googled both.

The google statistics do not reflect positively on my grammatic instincts: 7,810,000 entries for “all of a sudden,” and only 671,000 for “all of the sudden.” Further, there are bunches of “grammar” websites that take up the issue. I hate these people, by the way... I mean, I get annoyed when people use, commas and apostrophe’s wrong, but not to the extent that I’d, you know, start a website to complain about it. But these dudes are adamant:

“...the proper phrasing remains "all of a sudden," and those who use "all of the sudden" will be marking themselves as imperfectly educated, or at the very least as careless in their use of language. “

Yikes.

And, perhaps more alarmingly, dictionary.com has an entry for “all of a sudden,” but none for a “the” variant.

I’ve been saying this as long as I can remember. There’s no way to tell when I first adopted the idiom, but I’d say that, at a ripe old age of 24, I could easily be sitting on two decades of occasionally sounding stupid. So why hasn’t anyone ever corrected me? And where did I learn this? How do YOU all say it?

In other news, I had that gig last week, which turned out pretty good. My playing was mediocre at best, but as I re-orient myself to the style, I imagine it will improve somewhat. Another gig next week at a party and some talk of regular or semi-regular restaurant engagements, either at the same place or an Italian bistro down the street. Good deal.

Also, for those in Buffalo, I think I’m playing a show with Dan (et al.) on the 22nd, under his name, at the Mohawk. Interestingly, we have not yet rehearsed.

Finally, my house is exceptionally cold, all the time. I wear many layers.

That is all. Over and out.