I always see people, even allegedly good writers, use the “all but” form, like “The castle was all but ruined after the attack.” While I know it means “nearly ruined” I was wondering how the hell this came into use. It seems to be a horrible mangling of style. Like this post.
It doesn’t seem wrong to me, just idiomatic. The American Heritage Dictionary has
The SOED defines it as
I’m not sure how it evolved to have this meaning, but it doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch from the literal meaning of all but which would be something like “everything except”.
I dislike the expression. By logic it should mean “the opposite of”. I think it is best avoided.
The first cite that the OED gives is from 1598 (by a writer named “J. Bastard”), so it’s been around for a while. I like the expression in certain contexts.
What’s the problem? Seems like the literal interpretation that “all but” means “everything except” is obvious. If you can imagine “everything but the kitchen sink” means “practically everything” or “very much”, why not “all but”?
You’re concerned about the idiomatic “all but,” but misuse “like” for “as”? (Not to mention the fragment sentence.)
I think the OP was smoking something funny when he/she posted this. Of all the things to worry about this should be number 98,503,295,703,295,703,257,023,975,023,750,235,703,275,023,590,325 on anyone’s list.