[tomrod]

Argh! The caption in this article makes a grammatical mistake that is a pet peeve of mine. I cringe every time I read or hear it!

An example: "Not all the donuts are eaten." "All the donuts are not eaten."

Assume some donuts have been eaten. Which is correct?

As I understand English, the first is logically correct, but the second is typically used.

I apologize now to all of you who have never noticed this before, as it may haunt you now for the rest of your lives.

[crazygringo]

When someone wants to negate the idea of a sentence, the negation is often placed in a spot that makes it unclear as to whether the sentence is being negated, or merely a smaller part of the sentence is being negated. This is a common occurrence in many languages and dialects.

Of course it can be confusing, and sometimes even downright contradictory if you think too hard about it. But language is flexible, and most people just don't write with such rigorous logic. So, just mentally realize that, given the context, the most likely interpretation is:

"all calories are not alike" = NOT("all calories are alike")

If this is still haunting you, just do what Allie does:

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better...

[breadbox]

The assumption that "natural language grammars" and "logic" are even on speaking terms will only bring you frustration, as you rail against perfectly correct constructions while the world rightly ignores you.

[rprasad]

I think what he's saying is that the noun is poorlly chosen. The proper, unambiguous sentence should have been: "some of the donuts were eaten" or "some of the donuts were not eaten."

The "not" is correctly used in either case, except in the edge case of "all" or "none".