0

As in the title, I'm conflicted whether to use the former or the latter. Logically speaking, I'd rather choose "hearts" since we're talking about everyones', but some quotes found on the internet make me wonder.

Tomek Cejko
  • 11
  • Welcome to ELU. This has been dealt with earlier. Search through previous posts. Good Luck. – Kris May 23 '18 at 12:11
  • I'm pretty sure it's a variation that hasn't been discussed before and it might prove helpful to people with similar way of thinking as me – Tomek Cejko May 23 '18 at 12:15

1 Answers1

1

Heart

Working off the assumption everyone only has one heart

As Nohat says here, everyone is a singlar word: Is "everyone" singular or plural?

To rationalise this, you are effectively saying 'every person' and thus you can see that the use of the singular is correct, fitting with 'has' as you've recognised and the singular 'heart'

So, like you can see that 'every person has a dream with stars in their heart' requires the singular heart so does yours.

Thus your sentence should read:

Everyone has a dream with stars in their heart

Community
  • 1
BladorthinTheGrey
  • 7,125
  • In short, the Q is a duplicate of or at least closely related to "Is "everyone" singular or plural?" Also, identical questions have been dealt with here before. – Kris May 23 '18 at 12:12
  • @Kris Closely related yeah but clearly the OP recognises that it is singular from the unquestioned use of has – BladorthinTheGrey May 23 '18 at 12:14
  • I have absolutely no problem with understanding that "everyone has", I don't get how this is a main point of concern. – Tomek Cejko May 23 '18 at 12:15
  • 1
    @TomekCejko Could you highlight where exactly the confusion lies then? Is it something to do with their? It is just a gender neutral pronoun – BladorthinTheGrey May 23 '18 at 12:17
  • It may be true that "their" makes for a difficulty in comprehending this sentence. While "Everyone has" can be reshaped into "Every person has", "their heart" is a different story. – Tomek Cejko May 23 '18 at 12:43
  • When their is used as a singular pronoun it takes the plural form of the verb (in the same way that singular you does). But in this case, the agreement is between heart and the "owner" (everyone) which is singular. –  May 23 '18 at 13:20