not all

   "For some time now tales have been circulating that all was not well in the Goldsmith empire" (Times). What the writer really meant, of course, was that not all was well in the empire, not that everything was unwell. The authorities are curiously, and almost unanimously, tolerant on this point. The Evanses are actually rather vehement about it, stating, "Distinctions such as this, between all is not and not all is, appeal to a fictitious logic and seem to have been invented for the purposes of proving other people wrong. They are not good for much else."

   I'm afraid the authorities and I are at odds here-or, as the Evanses might put it, all of us don t agree. It seems to me difficult to justify a sentence that so blatantly contradicts what it is meant to say, especially when the solution is as simple a matter as moving the not back two places. Setting aside any considerations of grammatical tidiness and rectitude, if we accept the Evanses' position, how do we make ourselves clear when we really do mean that all isn't well? A few expressions unquestionably have the weight of idiom behind them ("All is not lost," "All that glisters is not gold"), but on the whole, I think the construction is better avoided in careful writing. Certainly I wouldn't want to have to defend the New York clothing store that advertised "All items not on sale" (cited by William Safire, New York Times).