Hello, fellow grammar lovers, and welcome to another look at “Commonly Confused Words”! Today we’re going to learn about the difference between all together and altogether with a little help from the cast of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

All together is a phrase that means “in a group”—that’s it. So you want to use all together when you’re talking about a group of people or things, like a bank vault filled with nifflers or a garden overrun by Cornish pixies:

Queenie smiled brightly at Jacob, who was watching the ashwinders with some trepidation. “Oh, don’t worry, honey,” she said. “If you can get them all together in a sturdy cauldron with a lid, they’re easy to transport. Just don’t forget to bring pot holders! Isn’t that right, Newt?”

Newt glanced at the fireplace, which was currently home to at least one ashwinder and a small clutch of its eggs. “That’s one way to do it. Now, once I’ve frozen these eggs, I’d like you to gather them all together in this bag, all right?”

An easy way to check whether all together is what you want is to drop the “all”—if the sentence works with just “together,” like the examples above would, you’re good to go.

Altogether is a bit more involved. An adverb that means “in all; wholly; entirely or completely; quite; with everything included or considered; on the whole,” we usually use this word to modify verbs or adjectives.

Jacob approached the murtlap enclosure with some trepidation. His last encounter with one had been altogether unpleasant—at least, until he and Newt had met Tina and Queenie.

Jacob thought he might faint: the silver eggshells in his suitcase equaled several thousand dollars altogether. He could open two bakeries!

There’s also a colloquial use for altogether when it’s paired with “in the,” at which point it means to be nude:

Tina gasped as a loud knock sounded on the front door. She shooed her self-folding laundry into the spare room before closing the door with a flick of her wand. “Just a minute Mrs. Espinoza,” she called. “I’m, uh, in the altogether! Let me throw something on.”

So when you’re writing and thinking about using “all together,” make sure that you’re altogether certain you want to talk about about characters or props gathered in a group. Otherwise, you’ll definitely want “altogether.”


Sources:

Dictionary.com
Merriam-Webster.com