Grammar Girl here, today we're talking about indefinite pronouns, such as everyone and somebody.

Listeners have been asking a lot of questions about indefinite pronouns, such as everyone.

For example, Dean asks, when is it appropriate to say everybody and when is it proper to

say everyone?

Well Dean, the short answer to your question is that the words everyone and everybody

are interchangeable.

They both mean every person, so use whichever one sounds best in your particular sentence.

And a listener from New York named Pinkie wants to know, is everyone one word or two?

Well Pinkie everyone can be two words or one word, but nine times out of ten is one word.

When you use it to mean the same thing as all people, then it's one word.

When it comes to indefinite pronouns, Grammarians disagree about whether words such as everyone

and somebody are singular or plural when you use a pronoun to refer to them.

Several listeners have recently asked about this conundrum.

For example, Lisa asks, is everyone and likewise everybody singular or plural?

And Connie from College Station Texas asks, are you hanging in there on pronoun references

to singular forms, such as everyone and everybody?

Although I'll focus on the words everyone and everybody, the same rules apply to the

words no one, nobody, anyone, anybody, someone and somebody.

Earlier I stated that Grammarians don't agree on the topic of indefinite pronouns.

And there are actually two issues concerning this topic.

Are the words everyone and everybody singular or plural?

And can I use a plural pronoun, such as there, to refer to these words?

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