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I have the following sentence:

Joe got everyone's attention and started to speak.

Should it be everyone's, everyones' or everyones?

Daniel
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Joe Casadonte
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2 Answers2

54

As Robusto says, you should use everyone’s. Neither everyones’ nor everyones is a word.

Note that everyone is always singular and cannot be pluralized, which means everyones is incorrect. If everyones were a word, everyones’ would be the possessive form of everyones, but since everyones is incorrect, everyones’ is also incorrect.

Community
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Tsuyoshi Ito
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    +1 for since everyones is incorrect everyones' is also incorrect – Rookie Programmer Aravind Dec 02 '10 at 05:04
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    Thank you could you add what the ‘s stands for? Is it is or us(Like let’s is for let us)? And how to make sense out of it? Saying both Joe got everyone is attention or Joe got everyone us attention don’t make much sense to me. – Coding Edgar Jan 03 '20 at 12:04
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    @CodingEdgar It's a possessive "s", as in "Fred's house", "Joe's dog" - it indicates 'belonging to'. – TrevorD Feb 25 '20 at 23:35
  • I'm happy with this answer but why, Why?!, and perhaps who, decided everyones is not a valid word? – AJP Oct 14 '21 at 18:57
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It should be everyone's.

Robusto
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