Every one is singular or plural

Hello, ng!

I find all of them correct, if you write "everyone" in one word. I'd rather use 2 than 3.

Hi Pieanne,

Not to disagree with you, but I'd be interested in how you would explain your preference for ' Everyone is busy in their own lives' over 'Everyone is busy in his/her own life'.

to me, davkett, probably because too many his/her or his's and her's eventually become annoying, and the reader becomes more aware of the writer trying to be conscious of good form than he or she is of the matter at hand.

Yulysess, what I hope Pieanne can explain for me is the linkage of the singular verb 'is' with the plural pronoun 'their'. When 'everyone' is taken to mean 'all', the matching pronoun would certainly be 'their'. It's grammatically correct to say, 'All are busy in their own lives', but not, 'Everyone are busy in their own lives.' So, I want to see the explanation that allows

Hi, Davkett,

Well, I'm not good at all with rules, but here's my opinion. "Everyone" obviously refers to more than 1 person, even though it's a singular. Those persons are probably a mix of both genders, but I prefer to use "their" to refer to them because it's only one word and I find the sentence is more fluent than with his/her.

"Their" is not a pronoun, it's a possessive adj

hi davket

everyone?change to "himself or themself" ?ost :118152

Pieanne,

Thank you. I stand corrected on misstating 'their' as a pronoun. I would have asked the same question, though, about the mixture of singular, plural.

Before the advent of Feminism, when 'he/his' was considered gender-neutral, do you think that the sentence would have been written, 'Everyone is busy with his own life'?

Now, when 'everyone' includes mixed gender

yeah

you must be aware of the history of some words, like

chairman - chairwoman, and finally chairperson.

but some still remain obscure, like history

"A Practical English Grammar" by Thomson and Martinet:
As everyone/everybody takes a singular verb, the pronoun should be he/him, she/her with possessive adjectives his and her. But this is only found in formal English. In ordinary conversation the plural forms they/them and their are used instead:
Has everyone got their books?
Nobody objected, did they?

"chairman - chairwoman, and finally chairperson'

Don't forget 'charwoman'. Is that now 'charperson'?