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Is this sentence correct: The teacher told every single one of the pupils rewrite their essays.

3 Answers3

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It's fine, it's just missing the word "to":

The teacher told every single one of the pupils to rewrite their essays.

It would also be fine to say:

The teacher told all the pupils to rewrite their essays.

  • Your alternative would be appropriate if the class were told at the same time. The original is much better if they were told individually, as well as emphasising the lack of exceptions. – Chris H Mar 28 '15 at 15:27
  • 'Every one' takes singular agreement; one assumes it was one essay per pupil. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 28 '15 at 21:52
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The other answer indicates correctly a "to" is missing in your formulation.

However, you can get rid of "to" in this recast using the subjunctive mood:

The teacher required that every single one of the pupils rewrite their essays.

The teacher required that every single one of the pupils should rewrite their essays.

"require" and "should require" are subjunctive mood forms here.

The subjunctive mood is much more common after "require," which indicates a strong prescription.

E.g.

Health Effects of Low-level Radiation: Joint Hearing ... United States. Congress. House. Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce. Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations - 1979

You're saying that those records came directly from the Federal Government ? Dr. BROWER. This was the AEC veterinarian who was under— his superiors had taken the records and required that he rewrite his report

Marius Hancu
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'Every single one / every single one of the pupils' takes singular agreement. So assuming there was one essay per pupil, and gender of the pupils was unknown or mixed , the correct version is

The teacher told every single one of the pupils to rewrite their essay.