"Everyone" and "Their" Business

"Everyone bring their own laptop."

"Everyone bring their own laptop."

"Everyone bring their own laptop."

Chao- Sure a lot of people have written something like this in their work at one time or another. We may even ignore it if a writing program tells us this is wrong. Why should this matter? Isn't easier to type this than continuously write "he/she" or taking a risk in sounding sexist by selecting one sex noun? Not if you want to be a good writer, which means following all grammatical rules (unless, of course, you have a reason for breaking them, and ignorance does not count).

Making Subjects and Verbs Agree

Correcting Errors in Subject-Verb Agreement

Self Teaching Unit: Subject - Verb Agreement

Subject-Verb Agreement

Subject-verb Agreement: Watch the subject-verb agreement in your sentences when...

Suggestions on Fixing This:

• Change everything to plural -- "All employees bring their own laptop."

Chao- Chao likes to go with keeping everything plural since it makes things that much easier.

• Delete the determiner altogether -- "Everyone bring a laptop."
• Rewrite the sentence as a who clause -- "Everyone who has a laptop should bring it."
• Keep it to one sex -- "Everyone bring his own laptop."

-Drawback: You risk sounding sexist to some readers even if you did not intend to.
-Consider this: How can a singular truly mean all?

• Continue to write he/she -- "Everyone bring his/her own laptop."

-Drawback: You disrupt the flow of reading.
-Consider this: Use it sparingly.

Chao- Once you become familiar with grammar jargon, or decide to stop ignoring the explanations, understanding why Microsoft Word placed squiggles under a part of a sentence will start to make sense. Whether we are writing for a hobby or would like to have something published one day, keeping Subjects and Verbs in agreement in important. The links above do apply to the common "was vs. were" and so on. And dialogue is excluded since people try and not want to sound sexist.