are all reading a magazine

[navi tasan]

1) His patients are all talking to a lawyer.
Does that necessarily mean that they are all talking to the same lawyer?

2) The students are all reading a magazine.
Could each of them be reading a different magazine?

 

[Barque]

1) His patients are all talking to a lawyer.
Does that necessarily mean that they are all talking to the same lawyer?

They may or may not be.

2) The students are all reading a magazine.
Could each of them be reading a different magazine?

This makes me picture a few people sitting or standing in a circle and reading a magazine together. It could also mean they were reading different copies of the same edition of a magazine.

If they were reading different magazines, I'd say "The students are all reading magazines".

So yes, the second sentence doesn't work the same way as the first, because they talk about different things, though the structure is the same. Don't go by structure alone. The context/meaning makes a difference.

 

[Tdol]

If it's not a class action with a single lawyer, why not use their lawyers?