all _____ sudden

Who was the linguistically lazy individual who decided to call a new and startling announcement "the big reveal"? Until perhaps 2 years ago, those who read and had a fair vocabulary called an exciting bit of news "a revelation". I didn't think that was too big a word for most of us to use and understand. What's next? Someone whom we have always commended as having great 'determination'....would she or he now be said to have a "lot of determine"? Nails on a chalkboard.

Dorothea, you know what's even worse? When "like" is used, not as an interjective, but in place of the word "said":

"...and I like, 'what should we do today?' And he like, 'I dunno.' And I like, 'ya wanna go to the mall?' And he like, 'yeah, ok.'..."

Oooo, that IS worse. I don't recall if I've ever realized the omission of "said" when using "like" because as soon as I hear "like" used improperly, I turn off.

Hmm. Just to be contrary, I'm going to start saying, "all at a sudden", as in several things happening at one moment, all at once. How's that for nails on a chalkboard? lol

Please, Slobby, leave personal attacks out of it, especially when they are directed in the form of a run-on sentence. (Proofread your parting shot regarding my low-rent status: your comma should be replaced by a period or at least a semi-colon.)

In fact, take a second look at your initial volley: "Just because it's regional, doesn't mean it's OK." In addition to being a sentence fragment (using a dependent clause as a subject), you've diced it up even more by plugging in a comma before the verb. Ouch! You're writing just like you're speaking.

I agree. People frequently write language in the same way that they hear and speak it. I also agree that they often need editors to help clean up the results.

Can we concur on the points that you've illustrated with your own writing and let it rest? I really just came here to find out the distinctions between the various expressions that mean "suddenly," not to engage in class warfare.

OMG..AND YES, I AM GOING TO USE ALL CAPS...I'M SO SICK TO DEATH OF PEOPLE SAYING "ALL THE SUDDEN" INSTEAD OF THE CORRECT "ALL OF A SUDDEN"!!!! HAVEN'T THESE PEOPLE EVER READ A BOOK OR TWO??? HOW DID THEY GET BY IN SCHOOL??? I REMEMBER HAVING TO WRITE BOOK REPORTS AND OTHER SCHOOL RELATED MATERIAL...AND.SEEING AND USING THE PHRASE "ALL OF A SUDDEN" IN MY SCHOOL WORK. SOMETIMES I GET SO ANGRY, I CAN'T EVEN FINISH WATCHING A GOOD SHOW! OH, AND BY THE WAY, WHEN YOU ARE WRITING "I'M HAVING A PARTY ON SATURDAY" NOT "I'M HAVEING A PARTY ON SATURDAY"... COMEING...HAVEING..TAKEING..... TAKE THE 'E' OFF BEFORE ADDING "ING"...WHY HAVEN'T THEIR FAMILY OR FRIENDS CORRECTED THEM??? I WOULD BE SO EMBARRASSED IF I WAS GOING AROUND SAYING OR SPELLING EASY WORD INCORRECTLY.....UGH!!!!! THE SCHOOL SYSTEM IN THIS COUNTRY IS A COMPLETE JOKE....AND EVERYONE THAT USES A COMPUTER HAS SPELL CHECK...WHEN THE WORD YOU TYPE HAS A RED LINE UNDERNEATH IT, IT MEANS YOU HAVE SPELLED IT WRONG!....GOOGLE IT IF YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO SPELL SOMETHING, INSTEAD OF LOOKING FOOLISH.

I also realize I meant to write "...non-prescriptivist leanings..." as well. I should really proofread more- especially posting in a grammar forum!

@jayles: nice try

London Magazine 1738 - unfortunately Google Books has combined phrases from two adjacent columns -

L "are liable to so many Changes and to such sudden and unlooked for Alterations"
R "that his Majesty should communicate all the Secrets of his Cabinet"

to give:

"that his to so many Changes, and to such Majesty should communicate all the sudden and unlooked for Alterations, Secrets of his Cabinet"

But even if that was what they had written, 'sudden' here would be an adjective and not part of this particular idiom.

Searching Google Books for ' "all of the sudden" john dryden' brings up two quotes:

"All of the sudden she fell into the agony of death"

"[who] made the step to Popery all of the sudden, without any previous instruction or conference"

But it turns out that neither of these are from Dryden. The first is from an article on the 'controversy between Dryden and Stillingfeet' , possibly by Sir Walter Scot, published in a book of Dryden's poetry. The second is also quoted in a book of Dryden's poetry, but turns out to be from a book on the Stuarts by (Bishop) Gilbert Burnet, published in 1688, referring to the Earl of Sunderland, one of James II's advisers. A rather interesting contemporary account of the fall of James II, as it happens.

http://books.google.pl/books?id=6_xCAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA756&lpg=PA756&dq=%22made+the+step+to+Popery+all+of+the+sudden%22&source=bl&ots=QUT3XTmYEh&sig=8UTQXgZ3T91zllaV6OwrmmG7jk8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=qy3_UsqyFtGThge3zYGgCA&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22made%20the%20step%20to%20Popery%20all%20of%20the%20sudden%22&f=false

On the other hand, Dryden does seem to have a penchant for:"on a sudden":

"Ten times more gentle than your Father's cruel, How on a sudden all my Griefs are vanish'd!"

"all on a sudden there broke out terrible Thunders and fiery Flashes"

"and that by which Leonidas, after being carried off to execution, on a sudden snatches a sword from one of the guards, proclaims himself rightful king"

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22all%20the%20sudden%22&tbs=bks:1,cdr:1,cd_min:1600,cd_max:1868&lr=lang_en#lr=lang_en&q=%22on+a+sudden%22+john+dryden&tbas=0&tbm=bks&tbs=lr:lang_1en

A look at Ngram suggests that 'all of the sudden' had a little flourish around 1700, but these two alternative versions were rather short lived.

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22all%20of%20the%20sudden%22&tbs=bks:1,cdr:1,cd_min:1679,cd_max:1723&lr=lang_en

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=all+the+sudden%2Call+of+the+sudden%2Call+of+a+sudden&year_start=1600&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Call%20the%20sudden%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Call%20of%20the%20sudden%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Call%20of%20a%20sudden%3B%2Cc0

I hear "all the sudden" in interviews on NPR. I agree with asheibar that such colloquialisms emerge because they are heard and passed on, but not seen in written text. It reminds me of the occasion someone had written on the blackboard, "It's a doggy dog world." Clearly, whoever wrote this had never seen the written version, "It's a dog eat dog world." Well, marzy dotes and dozey dotes and little lambsy divey" !

It does not bother me that colloquialisms emerge and colonize the language; what bothers me is that it seems that reading is becoming a quaint, anachronistic habit performed by backward looking people who haven't caught on that it's all in the tweet.

I said " all of the sudden once", but it wasn't by purpose it was on accident

I’ve been watching television on low volume with subtitles quite a bit over the past few months, mostly due to the fact that I’m a bored and tired nursing mom under quarantine during a pandemic and I don’t want to wake the baby. I noticed “all of a sudden” written in subtitles and It grabbed my attention. I’ve always said “All of the sudden.” I A quick google search led me to conclude that I had been saying the phrase incorrectly for 38 years. Ugh. I hate being wrong. Outside of that, I dreaded the thought of having to put conscious effort into correcting myself, knowing that I would be neurotic about paying attention to listening to myself speak. I made a mental note to ask around and determine if other people say “a” or “the”. The two people I remembered to asked indeed say “a”. Ugh. So...I forgot about it and moved on. However, over the next few months I would see “all of a sudden” pop up on the subtitles and it would irk me. So I decided to turn up the volume to audible range and strangely, I began to notice that some people said “all of a sudden, but multiple people would say “all of THE sudden” but the subtitles would read “all of A sudden. Ahem? What kind of autocorrect stratagem is happening on screen? Another google search led me to this thread tonight and I must say, I feel an overwhelming sense of relief. I CAN continue to paddle upstream in my little rudderless dingy and try to climb on board “all of a sudden”, but I think I’m going to climb back into the “all of the sudden” boat, nestled safely in between the intellectuals and idiots; students and seniors; northerners, southerners, midwesterners and Chinese. It’s clearly where I belong.

Andy, I feel you, bruh (a phrase I wouldn’t have thought to use twenty years ago) and I even gave you a vote, in a fit of commiseration, but Candace is on the money. Language changes and slang becomes acceptable usage as soon as someone in the public eye is heard (or misheard not) using it.

Sadly, printed books are not the authority they once were, despite how some of us clutch them like pearls in our shock and astonishment at the way our mother tongue is being so wantonly twisted.

I have cringed at “all of the sudden” and “all the sudden” (a congressperson’s use of it brings me here tonight) since I started hearing it five years ago. But I expect by then it had been happening for a minute, since I’ve just been too damned old to run with the pack for nearly a score of earthly orbits.

The same feeling came over me in the aughts when I noticed that the letter “t” and even “th” were getting shorter shrift than they had for the first forty years of my life. “Nothing,” “nutting” and even “nuthin’” had all been left cold for “nu’in.”

I have a friend I’ve known since 1985 who still says “supposably.” We all gave him trouble about it but he just never got over what we all chalked up to a bad habit that his parents neglected to nip in the bud. He has a teenager now and I often wonder how that situation has sorted itself.

Not long after landing in Indiana, after most of a life out West, I got a job at the local library where i was offended by the lack of the words “to be” where I knew they absolutely should have (please don’t say “should of” near me) been. Suddenly the people whom the entire community considered arbiters of acceptable elocution were telling me “that binding needs fixed” and I wanted to die.

I know a Scottish lass who cannot understand how the rest of us get “hoo” from “who,” and I have no good answer for her.

It’s unbearable hell, but the wet sand is escaping from under our toes every time the waves roll out. The only consolation is the same is certain to keep happening and none will be spared the indignity.

appologies: articles can PRECEDE more than only nouns...

Here's another one that drive me nuts: "a couple... " in lieu of "a couple of...". "A couple drinks", or whatever. While I find the question of "all of a sudden" vs "all of the" merely interesting, with this one I am inclined to assume laziness. Any thoughts?

Not the definite article, it's the indefinite article!

I am in my 40's and grew up saying 'all of a sudden'. In recent years I have noticed the phrase 'all the sudden'. What I have also noticed is that it is being used by younger people - people in their 20's and 30's. It just seems like the new generation is reinventing it to now become 'all the sudden'. Listen closely sometime to people on t.v. and you will probably notice that 'all the sudden' is used a lot by younger people.
I am an avid reader. I grew up in Montana. I have lived in several states, visited many countries, and lived in UK for a few years.
Maybe the version we choose to use has to do with when we were raised, by whom, and where.

I love how this conversation started in 2005 and it is still going on in 2008!
And from a few posts, it seems that the phrase 'all the sudden' is being used mostly by t.v. people - and not just the younger generation. Maybe journalists invented it! Time saving device for precious air time perhaps?

Hell yeah Dan!!

It must be "all of a sudden" or "suddenly" beause "sudden event" :)

I am interested that no one is offering citations to back their assertions.

Some arguments are fairly well reasoned, but none seem conclusive because adequate references are not provided.

While one phrase may "seem" more correct, more widely used, than another, only statistical analysis can provide an accurate determination. Some statistically based examinations suggest that "all of a sudden" is used more frequently, but precise studies which reveal the distribution and use of the phrases in question are not cited.

Furthermore, grammatical arguments that have been presented are fairly technical, somewhat vague, and, again, do not offer referrals to well-credential sources.

I submit that using a definite article makes the phrase more specific and, therefore, more desirable.

Both "I was surprised by a sudden flash of light" and "I jumped at the sudden movement of her hand" make sense.

Perhaps there is a correllary with the phrase in question. Perhaps context most correctly determines which article should be used.

Thank you for your discussion.

All of a sudden I hear broadcasters everywhere saying, "That begs the question," when they mean, "That brings up or suggests the question."
Begging the question is a false argumentative technique, but it's being used in this other sense so often, that it behooves old-fashioned rear-guard grammar activists like me to simply accept it and move on.
Like splitting infinitives and ending sentences with prepositions and using like as an adverb.
All the sudden I feel very old and inconsequential.

"all the sudden" seems to be the standard form in Portland, Oregon.

I think calling people 'uneducated' and claiming that they've 'never read' because they use "the" rather than "of a" is completely ridiculous. My mother is a Language Arts professor and she says "All the sudden." my father has two master's degrees and he says "all the sudden." I'm a high school student in the top percentile and I say "all the sudden." I've also seen "all the sudden" used in the newspaper, and in dialogue in a couple of books.

These kinds of variations are an inevitable part of language, and subject to locality and generation.

im 16 and i dont know which one is the "correct phrase" but who really cares...it depends on how people interpret the phrase. i was just talking to my boyfriend and said "all of THE sudden" and he had the nerve to correct me. maybe the small percentage of people that say all of THE sudden are actually the ones using the phrase correctly. maybe the first time someone ever said the idiom, used THE. over the years, phrases change and people adapt to the language around them. maybe both are wrong. maybe the correct way to say it is all of suddenly...we will never know. so dont go walking around calling people uneducated and correcting people about the way they talk unless ur the one that created the phrase...and then if you are the one that created the phrase, make sure noone else has said something similar, because then more drama will be made over something dumb, such as who is saying a stupid idiom correctly.

so please people, get off ur high horse and get ur heads outta the clouds...get a life.

oh and someone can email me about the topic..this really angered me. and im willing to debate.

In my English compostion class we actually had this discussion with many popular phrases like this. Our school had people from different parts of the country and what we found out was that people in different parts of the country say things differently. It may not necessarily be that one way is right or wrong, it just doesn't seem "normal" to everyone else. An example that stuck out with me was the fact that the kids from the South (Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, etc.) tended to say "accrossed" instead of "accross." For example, "The wind blew acrossed/accross the state." Our teacher explained that it wasnt wrong to say accrossed, but it was just an evolved way of the word accross. The way things are worded over time becomes kind of like the game telephone. Another way to look at it is when European-Americans came to America through New York in the 1700's the people writing down names would sound out the name and write it how they thought it sounded. My lage name is Lage but it could have very well been Large, but the person recording the name could have forgotten the 'R' or it just got lost in translation somewhere along the lines. That is how I look at the way phrases are worded. No way is particularly right, nor wrong.

I'm so glad y'all had this discussion! I am editing a memoir for a friend and trying diligently not to drown out her personal, chatty, slangy style with grammatical dictatorship. She uses the phrase, "all the sudden", and my instinct was to correct it. But reading this discussion confirmed my thought that the phrase was a regional thing and part of her writer's voice. Thanks kids!

If any of you can actullay tell me what a "sudden" is,(which would be a noun), I will gladly accept your postulation that it is "all of a sudden", but since the term "all of the sudden" implies an adverb with "sudden" as a form of "suddenly", this form makes more sense gramatically. Not to mention that, "all of a sudden" does not imply an adverb, but implies the totality, (all), of the aforementioned "Sudden", and therefore, does not relate to time, which is the point of the saying, "all of a/the sudden", implying in a short span of time.Many of you have stated that you have only heard "all of a sudden" used all of your life, I am in my mid fifties and have never heard it used untill the last couple of years when all of the people started migrating here from the Northern states. As another poster mentioned, I don't care about where you are from, or what you say there, I am searching for the CORRECT usage.

Sorry Pat, you're 400 years too late to save English. The OED has a citation for "reveal" as a noun meaning "revelation" from 1629.

When you hang a door, the space between the door and the door frame is called a "reveal", not a "revelation". Also, in a TV ad, the moment when the product is displayed, often as a solution to some consumer problem, is called the "reveal" in the advertising industry.

I grew up in central Virginia. Said and heard 'all of a sudden' all my life--until I was about 55 and living in Los Angeles where a co-worker, originally from Arkansas, and I got into a (not acrimonious) debate about 'all of a sudden' vs. 'all the sudden'. I got to this site doing research on vernacular for a story I'm writing. Thanks for a great discussion!

So let's see... "All the sudden" is used by a small number of uneducated types in the American South and Midwest and in the northern UK. That's quite a lot of land mass, but still, everyone knows these are the uneducated parts of the English-speaking world. If you search Google for variants of this expression, you'll find that "all the sudden" is the most common, followed by "all of the sudden", and finally "all of a sudden". This is to be expected, since users of the Internet are typically uneducated.

There is nothing in the destruction of the English language that has bugged me more in 2010 than the use of the verb REVEAL as a noun. "The big reveal!" keeps punctuating people's speech, from the loud m.c.'s on the duller-witted of the TV game shows to shallow characters on the soap operas. E.g., "Is Carol's baby daddy the biological father of her child or not? Tune in Friday for "the big reveal".
Since when is "revelation" too tough a word for the general public to understand? What will happen to the Bible--will the last book of the New Testament have to be re-named "The Big Reveal"?

I'm sorry to inform Patricia that the English languages has been destroyed for a long time: the noun "reveal" means "that part of the side of a doorway or window opening between the frame and the arris", first cited in 1666. With the meaning "a final revelation of something previously kept from an audience", it dates from 1975.

Kipling truncated the idiom to "of a sudden." I suspect, Slobby, he'd read a book.

Both COULD make sense, though using "a" is more correct.
The original version of this term was, "in all of a sudden," meaning, it happened in one sudden moment, all of it. So saying it happened in all of a sudden does indeed make sense. "In all of the sudden" sounds rather stupid, is pretty silly, and doesn't really make sense. THE sudden, referring to the "sudden" it happened, if it was really just a sudden-- or rather, THE sudden is just a butchering of English.
"All the sudden," don't even.
I live in Wisconsin and hear both versions, though "all of the sudden, this happened" is a huge pet peeve of mine and I only REALLY hear it from this stupid 16-year-old boy failing out of school named Jake.
Though I'm 17, turning 18 in three months.

Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?

I'm a voracious reader, a habit that has only intensified since I got my Kindle a couple of years ago. I try to stick with the free and very cheap books and so am scraping the bottom of the Kindle barrel. However, the Kindle freebie I'm reading now is a police thriller in which "all the sudden" appears frequently. At first, I thought it was the typical poor editing problem one finds in many Kindle freebies. However, this book is surprisingly well-written, with accurate literary and historical references and free of the jarring grammar, spelling, and plotting errors. That's why I came here to see where "all the sudden" comes from. The setting is post-Katrina Houston with some references to New Orleans, and the author's name is Bertrand. So I'm thinking the Acadian connection might be right.

In many parts of England, people pronounce "th" as "v" (brother=brovah). Also, "all of a sudden" when spoken quickly, sounds like "all va sudden." So, the English bastardization makes sense.
Language morphs over time, usually due to laziness. So, like it or not, "all the sudden" is likely to replace "all of a sudden" because it is slightly easier to say.
I could point the prevalence of "all the sudden" in southern states as evidence of this, but that might be perceived as a jab at their litteracy or work ethic, so I will refrain.

Wilkie Collins uses "all on a sudden" in The Woman in White. Check it out on Google. Use Google and search "books" using the term "all on a sudden". Google will correct your search to "all of a sudden", but click on the tab that says, "search instead for all on a sudden" and you'll get it.

I've seen this elsewhere, but I can't remember exactly where.

The incorrect usage of this phrase drives me crazy! Oh--and may I add to the list "fustrated" and "supposably?"

Sorry- the line about the college Chairperson should have read, "...the only person who said it wouldn't matter..."

Wow! What an arrogant society we live in. The correct phrase is, "all of the sudden," it means suddenly (in the sudden moment of time). It is an adverbial phrase. If you have a phrase, "all of a sudden" it must mean (in a sudden moment of time). When speaking of a specific moment of time, does your usage of English allow you to say, "in a moment of time?" Mine doesn't because that phrase is used to refer to how long something takes, or how long something took. It does, however, allow me to say, "in the moment of time" referring to a particular moment. So, we say, "all of the sudden," not "all of a sudden." I have often suspected that, "all of a sudden" was a somewhat ignorant attempt to repeat the phrase, "all of the sudden." After reading these posts, I can see it has gained approval and acceptance and is viable in today's English. Fortunately, language, unlike nature, actually does evolve. Unlike the fossil records, we can look at the linguistic records and find evidence of how and sometimes why it changed over time. We live in a backward society. We think language should be treated as exact, but that it is okay to believe in a theory driven science (but, of course, that is part of another battle).

I had a lot of fun reading these posts!

My husband and I just had a "discussion" about which phrase is correct, so I ended up here. We both grew up in Chicago and somehow we ended up saying it differently. Now I have to survey my friends and coworkers just for fun. I really don't see why people are getting so angry about "a" vs. "the" when we should be more worried about the rampant use of the word "heighth."

I know what I say. I have never noticed it spoken or written in a way that would have conflicted with what I say. But for the first time ever, I was corrected for writing all of the sudden, and now, I'm sure I'm going to notice this every time I see or hear it.

MyLord,
"All the sudden" comes up in the London Magazine from 1738 and "all of the sudden" in John Dryden.
Try googling the phrases.

Correction - Burnet's book was published in 1724

@jayles - I should have put a smiley after 'nice try'. I didn't mean it in a negative way.

@WW evidently failed to convert. How about:
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/all-of-a-sudden.html

http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2008/02/sudden-life.html

@WW Can't remember Dryden but didn't Donne go like:

What did we do till we googled?

For God's sake hold your tongue and let me google...

I wonder by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we googled? and texted?

@jayles - had a far healthier life, no doubt. From your Grammarphobia link -' “All of a sudden” first appeared in 1681' - now there's a challenge for us Googlers:

"therefore all of a sudden they came with great violence unto Aaron, urging him to make them one" - Seven Godlie and Frvitfvll Sermons, 1614

"for Antichrists apostacy was not at the highest all of a sudden, but encreased by flow (slow) paces" - David Pareus, 1644

"He tells him what a disgrace it would be for him, if without order of law he should ( all of a sudden) bring so man Noblemen to the scaffold without a crime" - The History of the Houses of Douglas and Angus - David Hume, 1644

Now I can answer your question - relied on the OED to give us earliest appearances. But nowadays, if it's into the printing era, we can often beat the OED, just by looking in Google Books.

http://www.google.pl/search?q=%22all+of+a+sudden%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=-qkDU8fxD8Wx4wT1gIHIAw&ved=0CCAQpwUoBA&source=lnt&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A1%2F1%2F1500%2Ccd_max%3A12%2F31%2F1650&tbm=bks

@jayles - and from your other link (phrasefinder) - " 'All of a sudden' sounds like the kind of poetic version of 'suddenly' that would do justice to Shakespeare. In fact, that's what Shakespeare thought too, as it was he who coined the phrase. In The Taming of the Shrew, circa 1596, we find: Is it possible That love should of a sodaine take such hold?"

So Shakespeare coined the phrase? Around 1596?

"Behold of a sodaine behinde me, I heard a rusling noyse, like the winde or beating of a Dragons winges" - Hypnerotomachia, the strife of love in a dreame - Francesco Colonna, ‎Robert Dallington - 1592 (no apostrophes in those days)

http://www.google.pl/search?q=%22of+a+sodaine%22&hl=en&biw=1018&bih=595&sa=X&ei=ZbADU-CpK6jw4QTcvoDwDg&ved=0CB4QpwUoBA&source=lnt&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A1%2F1%2F1500%2Ccd_max%3A12%2F31%2F1600&tbm=bks

Shakespeare - sudden used as a noun:
on the sudden, upon the sudden - 8 instances
on a sudden, upon a sudden - 4 instances
of a sudden - 2 instances
none with all

It looks as though the 'the' version came first.

@WW etymonline.com suggests :
upon the soden (1550s)
and this does show up as such on google, although I couldn't quite get an exact date earlier than 1591.

@jayles- they probably got it from the OED (1558) - I've got 'upon the sudden' from 1585. I think you're much better looking at Google Books than Google as you can narrow down the dates and miss out all the dross.

Anyway I'm putting it all into a post, and will give details when finished. One thing is clear - 'on a sudden' carried on co-existing with 'all of a sudden' during the eihgteenth century.

OK I've found the 1558 one, but you can't get in to check

http://www.google.pl/search?q=%22upon+the+sudden%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=OrYEU7m2Cer14QTakYDgAw&ved=0CB8QpwUoBA&source=lnt&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A1500%2Ccd_max%3A1600&tbm=bks#hl=en&q=%22upon+the+suddeyne%22&tbm=bks&tbs=cdr:1%2Ccd_min:1500%2Ccd_max:1600

Sudden started to be used as a noun in the sixteenth century. At the time various expressions were used, with both 'a' and 'the', but without 'all' (there are none with 'all' in Shakespeare, for example).

'All on the sudden' was probably the first version with 'all', followed by 'all of a sudden' and 'all on a sudden', with a few examples of 'all on the sudden'. ' All of a sudden' fairly quickly became the standard, but apart from usage, I can see no reason why it is logically better than the others. Incidentally 'on a sudden' lasted well into the eighteenth century.

'All of the sudden' and 'all the sudden' seem to have caught on in a small way since the 1980's, but especially in the 2000s. I can't see any dialect basis for them, and they seem to have largely gone unnoticed, except by Brian Garner:

http://books.google.pl/books?id=FwmQpyibKkAC&pg=PA35&dq=%E2%80%9Call+of+the+sudden%E2%80%9D&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ctQDU-PXI-rN4QTxmoC4Aw&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9Call%20of%20the%20sudden%E2%80%9D&f=false

For my copiously illustrated history, see:

http://random-idea-english.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-origins-of-all-of-sudden.html

Man, I have heard this "all the sudden" boo-caca from some TV personalities, and granted, they are only saying what they were taught to say by others around them, while growing up... BUT! it's supposed to be 'all of A sudden" being that 'a sudden' seems like it's being used as a noun... because it CAN be (and IS) used as a noun, i.e. "all of a sudden" ;) Truly it is used in it's correct and incorrect form... if you have to be anal about it (I am NOT saying that there's anything wrong with that btdubs), say something to the person that says it wrong... if you can live with it, then do.

Yes, it is an idiom. However, those who say, "get over it" (i.e. do not read) do not understand how the misused idiom makes the speaker sound less intelligent and thus erodes their credibility.