All the children love soccer. vs All of the children love soccer.

[Bulone]

I have a question about "All" usage. In cambridge grammar book, it said that we didn't need to use "of" before noun. It was only needed before pronoun. I'm not sure what exactly does it mean by that. Does that mean, it isn't wrong to use "of" but just unnecessary? Here's the sentence to give clear picture of what I'm saying -
"All the children love soccer"
"All of the children love soccer"

[Natasha81]

All(the) children love soccer.
All of them love soccer.
All of his friends love soccer.

[Honey2]

All the children or all of the choldren
each are right
_________________
live quite life

[Bulone]

[Esl_Expert]

Hello Bulone,

I'd say the primary situation in which you might see "all+of+noun" would be when the noun is a proper noun -- and it would also have to be a proper noun that is not typically used with the definite article. For example:

These are OK:

- all of America
- all of London
- all of Mount Rushmore
- all of Broadway
- all of July

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The following are not acceptable because these proper nouns are typically used with the definite article in any context:

- all of United States
- all of Sahara Desert
- all of Empire State Building

______________________
"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand." ~ Milton Friedman