Both' and all' before full verbs

Both anda// as pronouns must be used before full verbs:

The girls both left early

(= Both girls/Both the girls/Both of the girls left early.)

The girls all left early

(= All the girls/All of the girls left early.) And note both'all before have as a full verb [> 10.27, 10.32]:

We all have our books We both had a haircut

Both', 'all' and 'half: word order with pronouns

Both' and 'all': pronoun subject

Both and all must be followed by of before pronouns like us, them: Both of us/them left early (= We/They both left early.) All of us/them left early (= We/They all left early.) All of it went bad (= It all went bad.)

Both' and 'all': pronoun object with verbs and prepositions

/ love both/all of you or / love you both/all

He gave some to both/all of us or He gave some to us both/all

You've eaten all of it or You've eaten it all

Half as a distributive and as an adverb

Half (of) the bottles are empty (i.e. half of them are not empty) However, there is a different meaning when half is an adverb: The bottles are half empty (i.e. no bottle is completely empty)

5.21 The negative' of 'all' and 'both'

We can use not all to mean 'some but not all': Not all the girls left early (= Only some of them left early.)

Compare the above with the following negative: All the girls didn't leave early

This negative statement is ambiguous because it can mean 'some of

them left early' or 'none of them left early'.

To avoid ambiguity we should use none of to make the negative of all

and neither of to make the negative of both
All the girls left early None of the girls left early

Both the girls left early Neither of the girls left early

Distributives

5.22 'All (the)' compared with '(the) whole'