[The following regards the UK case Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co (1893)] One of the arguments made on the Company’s behalf was that holding that there was a contract with the claimant would mean that the Company had contracted with everybody in the world, because the advert was addressed to the whole world. Th is argument was given short shrift by the Court of Appeal:
It is not a contract made with all the world. There is the fallacy of the argument. It is an offer made to all the world; and why should not an offer be made to all the world which is to ripen into a contract with anybody who comes forward and performs the condition? (per Bowen LJ)
Based on the content, I guess that all the world = the whole world. Yet can all the be followed by a singular noun? How? I know that a plural noun can follow it, so am confused.
Source: p 17, The Law of Contract, 5 ed (2012), by O’Sullivan and Hilliard