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Are there any significant differences in meaning or usage between "everyone" and "everybody", or "anybody" and "anyone"?

As far as I know, there are some grammatical points involving "everyone" and "everybody", or "anybody" and "anyone", but books/internet/professors cannot identify any differences of meaning or usage between these two pronouns.

tchrist
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karthik rangaraj
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    I would say any difference that does exist is either unimportant or imagined. You're safe using them interchangeably outside of set idioms. –  Oct 21 '11 at 08:05
  • Thanks, everyone is singular and it must paired with a singular verb is this a correct usage??? – karthik rangaraj Oct 21 '11 at 08:08
  • Yes, everyone/everybody is singular, as is anyone/anybody. –  Oct 21 '11 at 08:09
  • It is. However, as the OED says, ‘The pronoun referring to "every one" is often plural: the absence of a singular pronoun of common gender rendering this violation of grammatical concord sometimes necessary.’ – Barrie England Oct 21 '11 at 08:11

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In ‘The Cambridge Guide to English Usage’, Pam Peters reports that, while both forms are in regular use in the UK and the US, the forms with -one are more frequent. The forms with –body are most commonly found in conversation and used more freely in American than British fiction.

Barrie England
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