Lan Barnes wrote:
But you're right. My 4th Grade teacher (Eisenhower administration) was
still fighting the good fight, insisting that "everyone," "anyone,"
someone," and "none" (being a contraction of "no one") were singular. The
problem with that is, with gender pronouns, you end up offending women
with "everyone should bring his raincoat," and performing a cumbersome
abomination with "everyone should bring his or her raincoat." "Their"
spares you the embarrassment of gender, so most say "... bring _their_
raincoat" which is plural. But no one would miss the singular nature of
the subject-verb agreement in the following:
Everyone says so. # singular
Everyone say so. # plural and painful to the ear
Hey, listen up. Everybody! Everyone say "so".
(And everyone says "so".)
;)
--
Ralph
--------------------
Mark Twain once observed that people who spell words the same way all
the time are like people who wear the same clothes every day.
--quoted from http://prorev.com/quotes5.htm
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