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Be careful with
sentences that have an all … not … form. They may be hazardous to your
clarity. The sentence All of the departments did not file a report may
mean that some departments did not file or that none did. If you want the first
meaning, you can express it unambiguously by saying Not all of the
departments filed a report.
If you want the second
meaning, try a paraphrase such as None of the departments filed a report
or All of the departments failed to file a report. Note that the same
problem can arise with other universal terms like every in negated
sentences, as in the ambiguous Every department did not file a report |