of all places
38
7.4
- idiom
- Informal
- It surprised everyone that the meeting was held in, of all places, the local library.
- York, of all places
- California, of all places
- here, of all places
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Watch on YouTubeAnd this is in LA of all places, bra, bra.
- And this is in LA of all places, bra, bra.
- We first met on a dude ranch, of all places.
- Oh, yes, I did, because I learned English in New York, Queens, of all places.
- I just ran into a kid who was about to leave on his mission work, going to Britain of all places, at a conference.
- And he did it at the Johns Hopkins School of all places, and he created a place for this research, which has now helped so many.
- But unlike the other tour guides you'll hear throughout the day, I have the unique pleasure to encounter her in Sicily, of all places.
Examples
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"More Tales of the Settlers," he read from the cover, "and published in New York, of all places."
Fiction book (1990) -
You would think Canada of all places would be a pretty meek and mild government.
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Why there, of all places, would you do that?
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I just ran into a kid who was about to leave on his mission work, going to Britain of all places, at a conference.
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I mean, imagine seeing her here, of all places.
Fiction book (1990) -
Tells me we might have to go to Iowa, of all places.
Fiction book (1990) -
French Vogue of all places had decided it would never show fur.
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He found his fame on YouTube, of all places.
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But why did Intel choose SIGGRAPH of all places to launch new GPUs?
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And IKEA of all places has their own in store drop off for household battery and light bulb recycling.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase can be parsed compositionally as 'among all possible places', so a learner who knows the words can often infer the basic sense that the location is notable. However, its conventionalized exclamative/pragmatic use to signal surprise or ironic emphasis is somewhat idiomatic and may not be fully predictable without prior exposure. Given the partly compositional structure but conventionalized emphatic function, it is best classified as semi-transparent.
Etymology
Of all places gives a clear picture: out of all the places you could think of, this one is the most unlikely. That's why people use it to show something is 'surprising' or 'unexpected'.