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If I have 2 pens and I want to say all of them are green, I can say "Both of them are green" but if I have 3 pens should I use "Triple of them are green" or "All of them are green"?

Mari-Lou A
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Anonymous
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3 Answers3

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You could go with any of the following:

All 3 of my pens are green,

All (of) my 3 pens are green,

My 3 pens are all green,

The word triple as an adjective means:

  1. Three times bigger in size or amount

  2. Having three parts or including three people or things, for example:

    a triple murder

    a triple heart bypass

When used as a verb, it means:

  1. To cause (something) to become three times as great or as many
  2. To become three times as great or as many

In mathematics:

to triple the number 4 is equivalent to multiplying 4 by 3,

written numerically as: (4 + 4 + 4) or (4 x 3) = 12

Source: M-W

Hope that helps.

Julie Carter
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Karl
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    The closest construction to "Both of them are green." is "All three of them are green." – Peter Shor May 11 '11 at 12:30
  • Yes, @PeterShor; you're quite right. – Karl May 11 '11 at 13:53
  • @Peter Shor: That's exactly what i said, in one sentence. I don't know why long answers are more attractive here. – Gigili May 11 '11 at 18:46
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    @zizi: "All my three pens" is different from "All three of my pens," and I believe the second one is quite a bit more natural in English. You can say "All my pens" and "My three pens," but when you put these constructions together, you need to add an of. I don't know why. – Peter Shor May 11 '11 at 19:28
  • @Peter, it's because "All my pens" really needs an 'of', too ("All of my pens"). I think omitting the 'of' really only sounds OK because of a certain long-running TV show by the name of All My Children. – Marthaª May 11 '11 at 21:04
  • @Martha: the same thing happens with All the pens, and All the king's men has been around for much longer than All My Children. Here, for example, "All the four king's men" is wrong, although "All four king's men", "All the king's men," "All four of the king's men," and "All of the four king's men" are all acceptable. I think it's because the two number adjectives, all and four, don't like being separated. – Peter Shor May 11 '11 at 22:41
  • (continued) although note that "All the four kings' men," where four modifies kings and not men, is fine. Here all and four don't mind being separated because they're modifying different nouns. – Peter Shor May 11 '11 at 22:50
  • This is an overall good answer but I think it has a flaw in that the phrasing of the fifth line might make it easy to conflate with how the concept of thirds are presently taught. I'm not sure entirely how to fix that at present though. – Tonepoet Aug 21 '15 at 14:00
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You can say "all my 3 pens are green" to mention the number of your pens and their color, simultaneously.

Gigili
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I have three pens - all green.

G.R.Soni
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