Is it all told or all tolled?

Answer 1

Sound-alike words can be very confusing.

As you know, "told" is the past tense of "tell."

"Tolled" is the past tense of "toll", which is the sound a bell makes when a clapper strikes its inner surface.

So, in your question, you want the phrase "all told."

Here are example sentences of the differences between "all told" and "all tolled".

1. All told, there were 20 injured students.

2. Sixty persons, all told, objected to the plan.

"All told" is a shortened version of "all be told", which basically means, "If all the facts be told, this is what happened."

1. Church bells across the country all tolled at the hour when the plane had crashed ten years earlier.

2. A chorus of bells all tolled under the expert hands of the bell ringers at the Christmas Eve service.

"All tolled" means "all of the bells from ___ tolled" or "all of the bells tolled".

"All told" is a phrase instructors discourage using in academic writing. It is generally an awkward and unsophisticated phrase. It can be omitted without changing the meaning of the sentence.

1. All told, one hundred and forty persons died over Labor Day weekend in New York City.

2. One hundred and forty persons died over Labor Day weekend in New York City.

Answer 2

To "toll" also means to add together creating a "total". "All tolled" can mean "totaled". The verb "toll" can be applied to the grand total of any thing, event, or set of sums.

The use of "all told" as meaning "when it is all told" is probably a recent misunderstanding of the original term. A toll is not negative (as in death toll), it is merely the total. "All tolled" means the total with nothing omitted.

The origin may come from the ringing of a bell in a clock tower (to toll the bell) which was counted by the listening public to know the time. Then the tolling stopped, the total number indicated the time. Counting some of them would be an act of counting (tolling, totaling), but only when the chimes were "all tolled" would the full count be known.

Answer 3

All tolled. We are no longer in an era of roll calls, unless you are a prisoner of some type