Suddenly

Bert   Fri Sep 30, 2005 7:29 am GMT
Hello.When I was in the 5th grade I remember almost getting an A+ on an English paper,except I use "all of a sudden" instead of "suddenly".Now days everyone says "all of a sudden". whats up with that?
Frances   Fri Sep 30, 2005 8:18 am GMT
Its probably just a trend that has been passed from one person to another; I guess it sounds slightly more dramatic than "suddenly". I'm sure "suddenly" will be in vogue soon.
Ken   Fri Sep 30, 2005 11:31 am GMT
all of a sudden is INFORMAL (just like It's me)
suddenly is more FORMAL (just like It is I)

When we write, we prefer formal ways because we want to be given better grade/job :)
Gjones2   Fri Sep 30, 2005 2:32 pm GMT
Here are some 19th-century examples of formal use from Thackeray's Vanity Fair:

Joseph at this burst out into a wild fit of laughter; in which, encountering the eye of Miss Sharp, he stopped all of a sudden, as if he had been shot.

The honest Irish maid-servant, delighted with the change, asked leave to kiss the face that had grown all of a sudden so rosy.

All that day from morning until past sunset, the cannon never ceased to roar. It was dark when the cannonading stopped all of a sudden.

Notice that these examples are all in the voice of the narrator and not part of the dialogue.
JJM   Fri Sep 30, 2005 4:34 pm GMT
They simply represent two slightly different ways of expressing a concept. Neither is any more or less formal than the other.
Uriel   Sat Oct 01, 2005 5:04 am GMT
Both are standard as far as I am concerned, and neither are formal or informal.
Bert   Sat Oct 01, 2005 11:27 am GMT
so you think I should have gotten a perfect paper?
Tran van Thu   Wed Oct 05, 2005 9:04 am GMT
Thank a lot the forum
from today I try to learn english so I want to access the forum every day
but my english now not good but I will to learn hard
ok
Tran   Thu Oct 06, 2005 2:29 am GMT
Hello Tran.Its nice to meet you,buddy!
ted   Thu Oct 06, 2005 2:30 am GMT
Hi Tran.sorry...MY name is Ted and YOU are Tran.sorry
Easterner   Thu Oct 06, 2005 10:11 am GMT
Even though both forms are of an equal level of formality , I tend to think that "all of a sudden" is more dramatic, while "suddenly" is more neutral, or, as I prefer to put it, unemotional. "All of a sudden" is more of an attention catcher, so it would be more likely to occur in a literary work (as the example from Vanity Fair shows).
Easterner   Thu Oct 06, 2005 10:16 am GMT
Just one more thing to add: using "all of a sudden" (in a narrative, for instance) shows more of the speaker's or writer's involvement in what happened than does "suddenly". For this reason, the possible context where "all of a sudden" can be used seems to be more limited than that of "suddenly" (I feel that only the latter would be appropriate in a strictly objective piece of writing).