all in love with a woman

[navi tasan]

Are these sentences correct and logical?

1) This is the story of three men who were all in love with a woman. That woman was Sally Atkinson.

2) We have five ladies on our show tonight who come from different backgrounds but who have one thing in common. They all love a TV show. And that show is ours.

The first sentence in #1 would normally lead one to think that they are in love with three different women. But could it be used if it is the same women?

The problem in #2 is basically the same, from a logical point of view.

 

[Tarheel]

1) This is the story of three men who were all in love with a woman.

That says to me it's the same woman.

 

[Skrej]

Taken in context with the accompanying sentence, there's no way they could possibly be interpreted as loving anything other than the same woman/TV show.

If you take the first sentence in each set by itself without the accompanying details, then I suppose one might allow for the possibility of different women/shows. However, the words 'all' and 'one thing in common' imply it's the same object of affection. Otherwise, there's nothing special about three men loving three separate women, or five women loving five different shows. That's the norm, not the exception. There's an inherent implied exception with the first sentence (the exception being it's the same woman or show).

Otherwise, we'd express it something like "This is the story of three men, all in love with different women' or 'Three men in love with a woman of their own', or similar.

 

[PeterCW]

Both pieces are structured to give a specific effect. The juxtaposition of the ambiguity with the second sentence gives more emphasis to the name.

I would only use a structure like this if writing promotional copy or if I was hoping for comedic effect.