Alright this thing pops up every now and then and it's driving me insane. In the English language, I'm puzzled about the meaning of: "all but ..." in a sentence. To me "all but ..." sounds to mean: "Everything except ...", the only problem is that you weird english types tend to use it the other way around. In some kind of devious universial plot against me, the meaning is reversed. For example the saying "he is all but dead" to me sounds like somebody saying he was never more alive: All (= everything) but (= except) dead, the only problem here is that native english speakers would mean: "mostly dead". I'm hoping some friendly natives will enlighten me.

"He's all but dead" basically means he's as close to being dead without actually being dead. Think of someone in a vegetative state. He may have many characteristics of being dead (lost consciousness, completely unresponsive to any stimuli) but technically he's not dead. He's "all" characteristics of being dead but not dead. The "all" doesn't mean "everything but dead." It refers to the characteristics of being dead. Strictly speaking, I guess it may not be proper English. I'm no English major.

Your guess about it was correct.

"Everything except X" is a reasonable alternative. Saying "all but dead" would mean that he has ("all") attributes of being dead except ("but") not actually being dead.

"All but x" could also be said "very nearly x". It implies an extreme proximity to the x, but not including it. "All but dead" could be "very nearly dead". "The food is all but finished" could be restated "The food is very nearly finished".

English is what you got when you scraped up people from all over western Europe, dumped them on an island, and taught them to brew a wide assortment of alcoholic beverages, and then let them learn to talk to each other.

It isn't pretty so just smile and nod, and pretend it makes sense.

It's strange because it's directly translatable to dutch, saying exactly the same, but we take it to mean the direct opposite. The "everything" in our saying refers to all of X's direct opposites.

Dead - Alive, healthy, strong etc.


@ talroth
By the time we came to the subject of spelling, we were clearly already experimenting with psychoactive drugs. Seriously, last I heard, our latest official spelling revisions have been boycotted by the media. lol/sob

At least when I find some sort of exception to the rule in english spelling, there is some sort of reason for it. We like to treat spelling as an end in itself.

The Chaos

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

Dr. Gerald Nolst Trenite (1870-1946),
a Dutch observer of English.

Quote: Original post by Kirl
It's strange because it's directly translatable to dutch

I assume you mean "alles behalve" - which does also translate to English to it's use in Dutch...

"Did you remember everything?"
"Everything except the camera"

I think perhaps a more accurate translation of "all but dead" would be "zo goed als dood"

Take a look at I always get my sin for some more amusing examples of Dutch/English translations.

Haha, that poem was great, thanks for posting! I guess English isn't all that straightforward either, it comes a lot more natural to me though. Meaby because much of our media is also in English (movies, games, books etc).

So english pronunciation is a pickle but how do you feel about the spelling?


@_moagstar_

What about my example:
Hij is alles behalve dood, betekend: Hij is springlevend. Mee eens?
dood - springlevend <-- opposites.
He is all but dead, means: he's nearly dead.
dead - nearly dead <-- similar.

"zo goed als ..." seems like a good translation, but I'm more puzzled about how we interpret the same words (same saying) to mean something exactly opposite.

Personally I think moose is the best word in English.

I saw a moose in the field.
I saw ten moose in the field.

None of this remembering how the plural nonsense goes. Mouse, mice. Goose, geese. Hen, hens. Die, dice, dies.

Quote: Original post by Kirl
Hij is alles behalve dood, betekend: Hij is springlevend. Mee eens?
dood - springlevend <-- opposites.

In Dutch yes...however the literal translation in English should be "He is anything but dead"

I too find it confusing that "alles" should sometimes be translated as "anything" and sometimes as "everything" I do remember reading something about this, that English is an exception to most languages when it comes to words like "anything" and "everything" but I don't really remember the exact details I'm afraid...

Perhaps there is a languages wizard who can explain it better.