VOA慢速英语2021--Everyone and Every One

Everyone and Every One

Hello! This week on Ask a Teacher we answer a question from Abdumajid in Uzbekistan.

Question:

Can you tell me (with) the uses of "Everyone " and "Every one?" Thanks in advance.

Abdumajid, Uzbekistan

Answer:

Dear Abdumajid,

Thanks for writing to us. These words are like some others that can be hard to understand for English learners. Let us begin with "everyone." It is a singular¹ pronoun² used when we talk about a group of people. Here is an example:

Danny brought enough birthday cake for everyone to eat.

You can use "everybody" in the same way as "everyone." This is a good test of whether "everyone" is the correct form for your statement³. You should always be able to use "everybody" instead of "everyone."

Everybody gave money for Danny's birthday presents.

Every one

Now let's discuss "every one." We use this expression to talk about the individuals or individual things in a group. The expression often follows a general statement and comes before the word "of." Returning to the birthday party, we can find this example:

Danny got six presents and every one of them made him smile.

Note that we cannot use the singular pronouns⁴ "everyone" or "everybody" to talk about objects. We only use them for people. But we can use "every one" if we want to talk about people or things. For example,

At the end of the party, every one of the guests thanked Danny for inviting⁵ them.

That statement tells us that, as each guest left, they individually said "Thank you" to Danny.

Anyone

A similar set of words is "anyone" and "any one." The same rule is true of these: you can use "anyone" or "anybody" only for people and you can use "any one," that is, two separate⁶ words, for people or objects. Here are examples:

Did anyone lose their keys? I found these on the table.

There are five cars in driveway. The keys could be for any one of them.

I hope this helps you understand the difference between "everyone" and "every one," Abdumajid. Remember that "everyone" is for groups of people and "every one" is for individual objects or people.

Words in This Story

singular – adj. (grammar) showing or indicating no more than one thing

pronoun –n. (grammar) a word that is used instead of a noun or noun phrase

1 singular   

adj.个人的，单数的，独一的，唯一的，非凡的；n.单数

参考例句：

• The young man has a singular ear for music.这个年轻人对音乐有非凡的欣赏力。
• The noun is in the singular.这个名词是单数形式。

2 pronoun   

n.代词

参考例句：

• The relative pronoun is often dropped if it is the subject.关系代名词做受词时常被省略。
• Here you should use plural pronoun.这里你应该用复数代词。

3 statement   

n.陈述；声明；综述

参考例句：

• The government will put out a new statement tomorrow.政府将于明天发布一项新声明。
• Put down your statement in black and white.把你的话用白纸黑字写下来。

4 pronouns   

n.代词( pronoun的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Relative pronouns and adverbs introduce attributive clauses. 关系代词和关系副词引导定语从句。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• "I", "you"and "he" are all personal pronouns. I，you和he都是人称代词。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 inviting   

adj.诱人的，引人注目的

参考例句：

• An inviting smell of coffee wafted into the room.一股诱人的咖啡香味飘进了房间。
• The kitchen smelled warm and inviting and blessedly familiar.这间厨房的味道温暖诱人，使人感到亲切温馨。

6 separate   

n.分开，抽印本；adj.分开的，各自的，单独的；v.分开，隔开，分居

参考例句：

• Are they joined together or separate?它们是合在一起还是分开的？
• Separate the white clothes from the dark clothes before laundering.洗衣前应当把浅色衣服和深色衣服分开。