Hmmm… this is becoming pretty interesting. I turned to two of my friends at random, and asked them what does this sentence me. They both responded that all of your friends are not German, but some may be. One was a native English language speaker, one was not. OK, a representative sample of 2 says absolutely nothing statistically significant, but at least it affirms I’m not the only one who thinks this way.
I’m gonna try once more to offer examples linguistically, and I’ll even attempt a logical explanation.
A farmer orders a crate of oranges. He gets a crate of oranges with a couple of grapefruit mixed in.
Could he say “Hey, buddy, all of these are not oranges!”
I say, sure. Would someone hearing this sentence think that his whole crate is full of grapefruit? I doubt it. Now, let’s say he indeed did get a whole crate of grapefruit. Would he say “Hey, buddy, all of these are not oranges!” To me, no. That sounds wrong. One would either say “These are not oranges” or “none of these are oranges.” Although, logically there is nothing wrong with the original sentence.
OK, now for my logical explanation. Maybe I can be a bit more coherent and mathemetical in my reasoning.
All of these fruit are not apples.
let: A=orange, B=apple, C=apple
This is where I sense a difference between the word “each” and “all.” I think most of you are treating the word “all” as “each.” In this case “each” means that:
A <> apples
B <> apples AND
C <> apples.
All three premises must be true for the statement to be true. I interpret “all” as [A and B and C] <> apples.
The difference? If any of the three are not apples, the statement is true.
Boolean:
orange = 0, apple = 1
A= orange, B= apple, C= apple
“all these fruits are not apples”
[A and B and C] <> apple (1)
[0 and 1 and 1] <> 1
0 <> 1
true
a= orange, b=orange, c=orange
“all these fruits are not apples”
[0 and 0 and 0] <> 1
0 <> 1
true
a= apple, b=apple, c=apple
“all these fruits are not apples”
[1 and 1 and 1] <> 1
1 <> 1
false
Whereas, analyzine “each” as “all” you would get for the above three examples the following equations:
a<>apples AND b<>apples AND c<>apples
0<>1 AND 1<>1 AND 1<>1
1 AND 0 AND 0
false
0<>1 AND 0<>1 AND 0<>1
1 AND 1 AND 1
true
1<>1 AND 1<>1 AND 1<>1
0 AND 0 AND 0
false
Following the exact pattern of the other board member’s reasoning.
I hate doing it in this esoteric boolean way, but that seems to be the only way I can explain it for the moment. I hope you can follow me. I can explain further, but I don’t want to waste the electrons at the moment. It’s the difference between “each” and “all.”
Awaiting the contestion of my theory …