grammar - How to say "Everyone but me ..."

Inspired by this question, I asked myself how I would say "Everybody but me..." e.g. "Everybody but me ate fish".

At first I thought of 私以外の人はみんな... which is a phrase that seems to occur often on Google. Then I thought that maybe I could contract it to 私以外のみんなは...which does appear on Google but is much less popular.

1) Is 私以外の人はみんな...natural in this context

2) Is 私以外のみんなは... wrong? And, why? If it's not wrong is there a difference between the two?

Answer

I think this is simply a reflection of how Japanese people prefer adverbial expressions to describe the quantity of things.

Semantically they are almost interchangeable, but 私以外のみんな tends to refer to a definite group of people (e.g., "all of the remaining seven people (excluding me)", "the rest of us"), whereas 私以外の人はみんな tends to refer to indefinite people (e.g., "everyone (living in Japan) except me").