Yes, perhaps you should specifically insult the people you’re aiming for and be done with it. If you were referring to me, feel free to correct anything I said - I never claimed to be an expert on grammar, and I was trying to be, you know, helpful, in my response rather than just chiming in to disparage other people :raspberry:
I’m not an English teacher, with or without sarcastic apostrophes, but I enjoy language, and I believe that it’s entirely possible to write clearly, precisely and grammatically without formally learning all the correct terminology.
Wow. A little touchy. I just picked out the most obvious and commented on them. Ok. My apologies to ANYONE I offended in this post!!! Was only picking on the most obvious, glaring ones.
But “everyone” is a singular pronoun so “their” is incorrect in formal English as it is in reference to a plural noun/pronoun. In colloquial English, however, people use this and it makes a lot more sense and saves more time than saying “his or her bookbag” since “everyone” is plural in meaning.
[quote=“Naruwa”]Everone has his or her reason for liking Japan."
“See you tomorrow! Everyone have fun at the beach!”
“Does everyone have their bookbags?”
In the first case, ‘everyone’ is singular, meaning ‘each person’. In the second, it’s plural, meaning ‘all the people’. In the third case, it is also used in the plural. So, like many other phrases in English, it depends on whether you’re using the term in a singular or plural sense.[/quote]
Actually, the first sentence is in the present simple declarative voice so you would use the third person singular to match the pronoun “everyone”. The second one is in the imperative so you use the infinitive form of “have”. You could easily change the pronoun to “you” or drop it for the you-understood and the meaning and the audience of the sentence wouldn’t change.
You could further show that “everyone” takes on the first-person singular conjugation by looking at other tenses.
Everyone has had a good time. not *Everyone have had a good time.
Everyone is having a good time. not *Everyone are having a good time.
Everyone was having a good time. not *Everyone were having a good time.
Jumping over ourselves kinda like you did…or were you just posting after someone else had explained just out of the goodness of your heart?
I wanted to explain it more clearly than what I had read on here. Sorry if you can’t stand being corrected.
For the record, I don’t teach by stating grammar rules and giving examples very often because it’s passive involvement on the students’ part. I prefer letting my students explore examples and see if they can come up with grammatical rules themselves if it’s an easy concept. Or at least an easy concept to people who understand the difference between declarative and imperative moods.
However, if you had ever opened a book of grammar explanations, you would see something similar to what I have posted. I’ll try to use monosyllabic words next time you need your grammar corrected so you won’t feel like I’m trying to join some kind of pissing contest.
Too much grammar emphasis definitely holds second language students back and I would never subject one to this kind of banter in English. It is a bit of work out for us though and personally I enjoy this sort of quibbling.
[quote=“smithsgj”]“Everyone is bringing his own lunch, isn’t he?” Supposedly grammatically correct.
This came up on Speaking in Tongues not long ago. What do you lot think?[/quote]
The goal of English (or any language for that matter) is to communicate…so now I know everyone is bringing his own lunch…works for me.
I think it is nonsense. Everyone is a collective pronoun so takes a singular verb. It refers to a group of individuals though, so if each of those individuals is bringing a lunch the tag requires the plural “they”.
well bob, it depends on how ‘tight’ the group is…if a group is considered a single unit…as in a married couple then it takes singular verbs…simple…besides as I said…if you understand it then it must be right.
Let’s change the verb to simple present. Everyone refers to a collection of individuals which, when viewed together constitutes a whole. In the sentence “Everyone brings their own lunch” brings is singular beacuse the group is being referred to as a whole but the pronoun is plural because we are now referring to a group of individual lunches. In other words the subject and verb are singular but the possesive pronoun in the object noun phrase is plural beacause now we are referring to an assortment of lunches. Two with peanut butter and jam and the other with tuna perhaps. The noun that the possesive pronoun refers to is singular though beacuse that sounds right to me and I am a native speaker goddam it!
[quote=“smithsgj”]“Everyone is bringing his own lunch, isn’t he?” Supposedly grammatically correct.
This came up on Speaking in Tongues not long ago. What do you lot think?[/quote]
Did you follow the link I posted on the first page? It covers this exact question (OK, with the substitution of ‘money’ for ‘lunch’ ). To summarize its conclusion, the above is correct. ‘Their’ is a corruption found in general usage.
Right in what sense? A lot of well educated, well spoken native speakers would use “their” and it makes a certain amount of sense to use it. In another ten years the grammar books will be saying it. There is no clear right here and that is because a collective noun is an inherently somewhat contradictory concept.
How about “Everyone is bringing a lunch, right?” There, not only have we danced around the minefield of using “their” and “aren’t they”, but we still have the same meaning.
Besides, why is everyone bringing his lunch when they can bring one of their own? And why is he so damn special that everyone brings it for him?
If everyone is bringing “a” lunch I hope it is a great big one.
And I dunno why everyone is bringing his lunch either but from what I hear it might have something to do with his charming personality and drop dead good looks.
I’m not quite sure what is meant by “a corruption found in general usage”. Surely what is correct and what is in general use among native speakers are one and the same?
Otherwise how are you going to define what is correct? By looking at TESOL materials? Funny!
Jumping over ourselves kinda like you did…or were you just posting after someone else had explained just out of the goodness of your heart?
). To summarize its conclusion, the above is correct. ‘Their’ is a corruption found in general usage.