Adaanist Grammar Rule #6 | Singular Indefinite Pronouns (Everyone, each, anyone...)
Rule #6: Singular indefinite pronouns take singular verbs. Plural indefinite pronouns take plural verbs.
Shah Adaan Uzzaman
July 09, 2025
Rule #6: Singular indefinite pronouns take singular verbs. Plural indefinite pronouns take plural verbs.
❌ Each of the players have a jersey.
✅ Each of the players has a jersey.
🤔 Why "has" is correct?
The singular indefinite pronouns (like each) always represent one individual or item at a time.
Even if followed by plural words, these pronouns remain singular.
The following table summarizes some of the most important singular, plural, and both singular/plural indefinite pronouns for the IBA DU exam:
Always Singular (use singular verbs) | Always Plural (use plural verbs) | Singular or Plural (depends on context) |
|---|---|---|
everyone, everybody | both | all |
anyone, anybody | few | any |
someone, somebody | many | more |
no one, nobody | several | most |
each | others | none* |
either | some | |
neither | ||
one |
*Note: For the purposes of our IBA DU exam, if you encounter a question where the subject is “none” and the question is asking you to choose the number (singular/plural) of the main verb, it’s fairly safe to assume that the main verb will be singular, not plural.
By the way, I gave you the term “indefinite pronoun” solely because I wanted to clarify the rule. You don’t even have to remember this term. All you need to remember is which words from the table take a singular verb, which ones take a plural verb, and which ones take both. That’s it.
🧨Trap #6: Seeing plural words following indefinite pronouns and incorrectly choosing plural verbs.
IBA DU exam confuses you by placing plural words after these indefinite pronouns. Your job is to ignore the misleading plural words/extra words/prepositional phrases just like you learned in Adaanist Grammar Rule #1.
Example Trap:
Everybody in the classrooms are/is working hard.
Correct: "is" (Because "everybody" is singular, regardless of "classrooms.")
Now, I want you to pick one of the tools from your toolbox.
🧰 Toolbox
In Adaanist Grammar Rule #1, we discussed how crossing off extra words in a sentence helps you identify the real subject.
So every time I encounter this trap or pattern in English grammar questions such as Sentence Correction and Error Detection, I immediately pick up this tool - crossing off extra words in a sentence.
Consider the following:
Everybody in the classrooms are/is working hard.
Everybody in the classrooms are/is working hard.
Everybody are/is working hard.
After crossing of the extra words/prepositional phrase, it becomes visible that “classrooms” is not the subject, instead “everybody” is the subject in this sentence.
🚫 Ignore plural phrases like "of the students," "in the groups," etc., after indefinite pronouns. These phrases don’t affect the main verb.
💥 Examples
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🔸 Example #1
Anyone among the students who studied the hardest deserve/deserves the scholarship.
✅ Correct: deserves, "anyone" is always singular.
🔸 Example #2
Everybody on all the teams has/have been informed of the new schedule.
✅ Correct: has, "everybody" is singular despite the plural phrase "on all the teams”.
🔸 Example #3
None of the suggestions from experts was/were helpful in solving the problem.
✅ Correct: was, "none" is best treated as singular.
🔸 Example #4
The research indicates that none of the solutions works / work in practice.
✅ Correct: works. Treat “none” as singular and ignore “of the solutions.
🔸 Example #5
Teachers understand that everyone, no matter their background, who reads / read regularly is / are likely to perform better.
✅ Correct: reads and is - both refer to “everyone,” which is singular.
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