Query

[Val Pagliai Nesti]

Hi,

I am not sure about being colloquial, and I would need some context to decide, but the shade of meaning seems different.
For example, let's say I am talking about killing roaches in my apartment. 

"We killed all of them" sounds more like something I would use to make a report.
"We killed them all" sounds more self-complacent.

Then, again, much depends on the paralanguage etc.

This anyway is my opinion, but I am not a native speaker of English.

Best,

Valentina Pagliai
UCLA




----- Original Message ----
From: Robert Lawless <robert.lawless at WICHITA.EDU>
To: LINGANTH at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Sent: Friday, August 29, 2008 5:38:55 PM
Subject: [LINGANTH] Query

Which do you consider more colloquial in US speech?

We killed them all.

We killed all of them.