Are you online all day or all the day?

Today’s English
March 4th, 2017

You cannot say “I worked all the day and became very tired”.  The phrases “all day” and “all night" should not be used with the definite article “the".

1.All night = throughout the night
He was snoring all night and I couldn’t sleep.

2.All day = throughout the day
The discussion went on all day but ended in vain.

Remember, “all day" is an adverbial expression as we have seen in the above usage.  But “all-day" is an hyphenated adjectival word used before a noun.

1.We had an all-day meeting at the Head Quarters.

2.It was an all-day programme but a quite interesting one.

When you mention a division of large time, you can say “all the morning" or “all morning”, all the week or all week, etc.

Other common  expressions related to day:
1. The other day = recently
I told you the other day, you know, he is abroad now.

2.In those days = a period of time in the past
In those days, the Internet was not available and collection of materials for project was done mostly in the library.

3.Day by day = gradually
Day by day, I  became an addict to Whatsapp and Facebook.

4.It’s not my day! :  used when so many unfortunate or unpleasant things happen in the same day
I don’t know why everything goes wrong today. Surely it’s not my day!

5.The order of the day : used to mean “it is the trend now"
Taking selfie and being anxious for likes and comments is the order of the day.

6.Rome was not built in a day : used to emphasise much amount of time and hard work involved in something
We know, Rome was not built in a day. We need at least two years to complete this project.

“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find why.” – Mark Twain