all of the sudden, one at the time, still in the bed

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

I suggested earlier that ALL OF THE SUDDEN is a USA Southernism. I thought I
was collecting these, but the only one I can find in my files is from an
Associated Press story that ran in THE RALEIGH NEWS AND OBSERVER on August 28,
2005, quoting the actor Patrick Swayze:

"All of the sudden I'll be pinched on the rear and jump and turn around and
I'll see this little blue-haired old lady running back to her group of friends
going, 'I did it Martha, I did it'."

Swayze was born in Houston and spent the first 18 years of his life there.

That is just anecdotal evidence, as is my observation that I first began
noticing this usage when I moved to North Carolina in 1967 (from Iowa) and assumed
it was a dialect thing, just like ONE AT THE TIME (which I began also to hear
here in NC in 1967), and the amazing "HE'S STILL IN THE BED" (which my Iowa
grammar told me that the family had only one bed).

I have a vague memory that these alternative uses of the definite article
have been commented on in print (American Speech? Dialect Notes? DARE? Mencken?).

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