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I was going to point out someone's use of "all of the sudden," when it dawned on me. "All of a sudden" doesn't make any sense either; it's just the commonly accepted version.

Both are just grammatically incorrect ways of saying "suddenly."

I was going to point out someone's use of "all of **the** sudden," when it dawned on me. "All of **a** sudden" doesn't make any sense either; it's just the commonly accepted version. Both are just grammatically incorrect ways of saying "suddenly."

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[–] • 2 pts

I saw that too and did a quick search. I came across about it. Two items stood out.

First, the opening:

What to Know The noun usage of sudden has all but been abandoned by history and the word has become bound to "all" in the idiom "all of a sudden," meaning "suddenly, or sooner than expected." There's no grammatical reason why the correct phrase is "all of a sudden" vs "all of the sudden," it's just the recognized form of the idiom English speakers have accepted.

Then this:

Here's where it gets weird: there's no clear-cut grammatical explanation as to why we use the article a in the expression instead of the. In the past, both articles commonly preceded the noun sudden (meaning "an unexpected occurrence, need, or danger") in phrases formed with of having the adverbial meaning "suddenly."

Then I got busy and sidetracked and forgot about it until i saw your post.

[–] • 2 pts

Funny - We read the same article.

[–] • 2 pts

Funny - We read the same article.

I was the first link returned in my DDG search. :-)