4

Possible Duplicate:
Should I use “everyone's”, “everyones'” or “everyones”?

I was writing a sentence in Google Docs that contained the following fragment:

...is in everyone's best interest...

The word "everyone's" was flagged as a spelling error and the suggested replacement was "every one's."

Which form is correct?

Community
  • 1
George Edison
  • 639
  • 3
  • 10
  • 20
  • It would seem like "everyone´s" is correct.

    There is a related question here: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/6058/should-i-use-everyones-everyones-or-everyones edit: But maybe I did not understand your question.

     – Mendel Jul 22 '11 at 21:58
  • Was it flagged as a spelling error, or an error in grammar? – pavium Jul 22 '11 at 22:02
  • @pavium: It was underlined with red, so I'm assuming it was spelling. – George Edison Jul 22 '11 at 22:55
  • @Mendel: Well spotted. Voting to close on the grounds your link covers this question. – FumbleFingers Jul 23 '11 at 15:18
  • Presumably, Microsoft speller thinks that you can add 's for the possessive in nouns, but not pronouns, and classifies everyone as a pronoun. – Peter Shor Jul 24 '11 at 16:14

2 Answers2

3

The possessive of everyone is everyone's, in the same way the possessive of everybody is everybody's.

In my experience, the spelling checkers get confused by contractions. The one that runs on the Mac OS X has problems when I write, for example, it's Sunday and it suggests me to use its if I meant to use the possessive; the previously used message was suggesting something different, showing that the spelling checker had doubts about what I meant with it's, even in a phrase similar to "it's a cat."

apaderno
  • 59,185
2

Everyone is a singular pronoun, and the way to morph a singular regular noun/pronoun (not ending in 's') into its possessive form is to append 's to it. Everyone is not an exception, therefore everyone's is the correct possessive.

Daniel
  • 57,547