Definite or indefinite article for non-singletons?

[Richard Damon]

On 7/28/19 11:13 AM, MRAB wrote:
> On 2019-07-28 13:30, Cameron Simpson wrote:
>>
>> The collection is "the things". "all" qualifies it, versus, say, "some
>> of the things" or "the first of the things" etc.
>>
> [snip]
>
> It's strange that "all the things" (meaning "all of the things") is
> OK, but otherwise it's "one of the things", "some of the things", etc.
>
> That's English for you!

My thoughts is that "of" implies membership in some category, some part,
but the phrase "all the things", we aren't looking at any category, but
literally ALL the things. "All of the things" implies all of the things
within some group, possibly implied by context. The category "thing" is
implied by the word thing, so doesn't call for the preposition. Saying
"All of the things" to mean every single one of them implies creating
some category that just happens to include every one of them.

-- 
Richard Damon