"all six companies" or "all the six companies"

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Pter  #478770  Tue, 19 Feb 08 09:50 AM
Should it be "all six companies are .." or "all the six companies are .." when these companies are mentioned before?

Thanks.
  
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bernice.farrugia  #478775  Tue, 19 Feb 08 10:19 AM
If they have already been mentioned before than 'all THE six companies' makes more sense. 

Bernice
  
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Pter  #478787  Tue, 19 Feb 08 10:59 AM
Thanks. I know we should use THE when referring to something we have mentioned previously. However, when I google for the following, I found

"all three boys" ---> 155,000 hits
"all the three boys" ---> 160,000 hits

"all three girls" ---> 311,000 hits
"all the three girls" ---> 350,000 hits

"all three men" ---> 310,000 hits
"all the three men" ---> 1,500,000 hits

Of course Google can't tell us the context, but just a rough idea. "all three boys", "all three girls" etc. seem to be quite common. Note that when we talk about "all three", it is quite obvious that the "three" must have been mentioned before.

This is quoted from BBC
[link]
All three men had previously taken part in some of the mass on-and-off hunger strikes undertaken by detainees since last August, ...

Moreover, sometimes we just say "all three" without the noun, e.g.

[link]
He said medical teams had tried to revive the men, but all three were pronounced dead.

In the second sentence, we surely can't say "all the three" without the word men.

So, is "all three boys", "all three girls", "all six companies" etc. grammatical?
  
bernice.farrugia  #478794  Tue, 19 Feb 08 11:19 AM
Yes you're right it depends on the context...and the examples you've quoted are of course also valid examples.  That's the beauty of the English language...there's an exception to every rule :)  The second option with 'the' still seems more natural to me though!
  
Pter  #478882  Tue, 19 Feb 08 02:29 PM
Sorry, I don't quite get it. In what situations should we omit "the"?

(By the way, should it be
In what situations should we omit the "the"?)
  
bernice.farrugia  #479031  Tue, 19 Feb 08 09:29 PM
In this case I would say that if the 6 companies were mentioned one by one previously in the text, then the use of 'the' would make the sentence sound more natural...simply because you will be referring to the 6 specific companies.
On the other hand, if the companies were just mentioned as a group (and not one by one), I would say that 'the' would not be necessary.

Bernice
  
Marius Hancu  #479038  Tue, 19 Feb 08 09:46 PM
all of the six companies (which I prefer)

or

all the six companies  

  
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Pter  #479102  Wed, 20 Feb 08 02:01 AM
Thanks Marius.

Yes, I can use "all of the six companies". This sounds better in some situations. However, I am still wondering if "all six companies" is better in some situations and whether emphasis has anything to do with the choice of using or omitting "the", just like Bernice has pointed out.

When I google for the following, I found the following:

In nytimes.com
"all three men" ---> 7660 hits
"all the three men" ---> 3 hits
"all of the three men" ---> 4 hits

In bbc.co.uk
"all three men" ---> 3090 hits
"all the three men" ---> 2 hits
"all of the three men" ---> 0 hits

When I replace three with four, five or six, or replace men with women, the first option still wins hands down. How can we explain that?
  
Yankee  #479142  Wed, 20 Feb 08 05:25 AM
To respond to your original question, I'd prefer "all six companies are...". 

I think it would be more likely to find 'the' in a construction such as this:
"All (of) the six companies that we visited last week are ..."
  
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