Everybody vs. Everyone

Is it the same with "someone" and "somebody"? Is there any substantial difference between them? I've just remember Paul McCartney's song "Let'em in": "Someone's knocking at the door, somebody is ringing the bell". Did he use "someone" and then "somebody" just to balance and contrast the sounds?

Taryn, "everybody" is not plural. It's "Everybody is going to the party", not "Everybody are going to the party", right?

AO, if it is irrelevant to you, why post.

Oddly, my second Bible, The St. Martin's Handbook, doesn't address this. As for me, I use "everyone" when I'm thinking 'more familiar' [i.e. tu vs. vu] and everybody when the case is less so.

Lucas has answered the question correctly....read his comment ..i am sure it will help

'Everyone' is used in the passive voice while 'everybody' is used in the active voice...

1. With the word everybody the subject is being considered as a collection or as one single unit.

2. With the word everyone, the subject is being considered as separate individuals, as in each individual.

And by "out familiarity" I clearly meant "our familiarity." Ain't typing the Dickens?

I have to say I agree with Nonie--"everybody" seems to imply taking the group as a body while "everyone" puts more emphasis on taking the group as individuals. This is, however, a subtle difference, so that there is room for other opinions.

I'll disagree with "greed" and say that I believe the distinction between "everybody" vs. "everyone" to be on of an active vs. passive voice, i.e. subjective vs. objective.

In the example that's given by "greed": "the deadline was missed by the 'applicant'" vs. "the 'applicant' missed the deadline", I'd argue that it's appropriate to use "everyone" in the first example and "everybody" in the second as in the first example, "applicant" is the object of that sentence and in the second example, "applicant" is the subject.

I've often wondered, however, when using "everyone" vs. "everybody" in an apositive phrase such as, "Hello, 'everybody'", or "Hello, 'everyone'", which is appropriate. My guess is for "Hello, 'everyone.'" Any thoughts on the matter?

When I had had enough of my kids making noise and running around ,I would say," I want each and every ONE of you to sit down and be quiet, and I mean it".

Not each and everybody. ONE means the one listening to you plus others that fall into the same catagory. Of course they are all listening--but it has an individual impact on each person who hears it.

The main point you are missing is that both of these words command a verb for a SINGULAR noun. Everyone.....his/her - not Everyone....their

In all of these messages, I found only two of you who agree with me! How sad!

Cecilia,

As someone mentioned earlier, using 'their' with singular nouns has been a part of English for hundreds of years. It may not sound as formal as some other options, but at this point it's definitely part of the language.

Of course it's a result of English not having a neuter singular third-person pronoun. Saying 'his or her' instead of 'their' is cumbersome and formal sounding, at least to me.

For example: 'Everyone did his or homework.' That doesn't sound very good to me. I see nothing wrong with using 'their' in that situation.

They way I heard it is that "everybody" is a big generalization of a group of people, and "everyone" is the emphasize each individual person.

Everyone was at the crime scene when it happened so everybody is a suspect. Wouldn't that be gramatically correct? As with matt, I am also speculating about the usage of 'hello everyone' vs 'hello everybody'. One is individualizing and the other is generalizing so should you say 'hello everyone'/ 'hello everybody'? Hello everyone(each and every one of you); Hello everybody (you all). Doesn't matter which one is used in that instance as far as I can see. They are interchangeable in some instances as above but not in others...Everyone is responsible for his/her own action. On the other hand it would be ackward for me to say 'everybody is responsible for his/her own action. In the latter case it would seem appropriate to change 'his/her to 'their' simply because of the generalization.

Everyone is taking this far too seriously.
I have yet been able to find anyone, or anybody who can give an answer resolute.
If the sentence makes sense when you say it, then there is surely, no problem?

Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary:
everybody = everyone
anybody = anyone
nobody = no one
somebody = someone

The main entries are under the "one" versions, probably because we tend to use them more than the "body" versions in spoken language. And Google Books Ngrams suggests this also been very much the case in print since about the 1930s.

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=everybody%2Ceveryone%2Csomebody%2Csomeone&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=

I don't think any hypothesising can alter the fact that they are the same, and that the way we use them probably depends on the surrounding words rather than any nuance of meaning.

By the way, in dogreed's comparison of "God bless us, everyone" and "God bless, us everybody", I think that in the meaning he is suggesting for the first one, it should really be "God bless us, every one" - ie each and every one of us. So this doesn't prove any difference either.

So how would this sentenced be phrased?
Hey come on everyone/everybody,we are here to discuss and not to fight.

@Johnson G - whichever takes your fancy; there is no difference - Or are you just having a little joke? :). If you really have any doubts that they are the same, just check a dictionary. Oxford Online, for example, defines them both as 'every person' without qualification. Nothing about whether they include the speaker or not.

Incidentally, a Google search shows:
"Come on everyone" - 11 million
"Come on everybody" - 1.2 million

This is an interesting thread. I suppose to sum up one could say:

a) it depends on the context and the surrounding words; and
b) personal preference as to what sounds best.

I doubt that Eddie Cochrane would have had such a hit with C'mon Everyone as he did with C'mon Everybody.

Is this a good example?

Everybody is (All the people are) equal before the law. Everyone (Each one) in the room agreed to it.

@Blue piano man - there certainly seems to be a bias towards using 'everyone' when talking about people present, and 'everybody' might possibly be used more to talk about people in general, but this distinction, seems to be largely disappearing. Even in your first example, 'everyone' is much commoner (in books, at least) that 'everybody', although admittedly, the difference is even bigger in your second example. It looks to be much more about changing fashion, than about subtle differences in meaning.

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=everyone+is+equal%3Aeng_us_2012%2Ceverybody+is+equal%3Aeng_us_2012%2Ceveryone+is+equal%3Aeng_gb_2012%2Ceverybody+is+equal%3Aeng_gb_2012&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Ceveryone%20is%20equal%3Aeng_us_2012%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ceverybody%20is%20equal%3Aeng_us_2012%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ceveryone%20is%20equal%3Aeng_gb_2012%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ceverybody%20is%20equal%3Aeng_gb_2012%3B%2Cc0

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=everyone+agreed%3Aeng_us_2012%2Ceverybody+agreed%3Aeng_us_2012%2Ceveryone+agreed%3Aeng_gb_2012%2Ceverybody+agreed%3Aeng_gb_2012&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Ceveryone%20agreed%3Aeng_us_2012%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ceverybody%20agreed%3Aeng_us_2012%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ceveryone%20agreed%3Aeng_gb_2012%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ceverybody%20agreed%3Aeng_gb_2012%3B%2Cc0

If you include 'present' in the second graph, 'everybody' drops out altogether, but the sample is so small as to be pretty meaningless.

logically, i would say, 'everyone' can be referred as 'each one of you'(in a group of people) and 'everybody' can be referred as 'all of you'(in a group of people)

both words are synonym. it depends to the people we want it to be pointed to.

sometimes, it is not about what books tell us. but, it is what or how we want it to be..

I've just noticed this from dogreed way back in 2010:

' The words "everyone" and "everybody" are not entirely interchangeable. For example, the phrase "God bless us, everyone" is generally taken to mean "God bless us all," while the phrase "God bless us, everybody" might be taken to mean "hey y'all, God bless us." '

Except that the standard phrase isn't "God bless us, everyone", but "God bless us, every one".

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=God+bless+us+everyone%2CGod+bless+us+every+one&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CGod%20bless%20us%20everyone%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CGod%20bless%20us%20every%20one%3B%2Cc0

As has been pointed out by douglas.bryant and others, "everyone" is not the same as "every one".

But this seems to be a common mistake: the best-known instance of the "God bless us" quote is no doubt that from Dicken's 'A Christmas Carol'. If Tiny Tim had indeed said "God bless us, everyone!", as is falsely quoted in Wikipedia and elsewhere, his meaning would in fact have been rather like a southerner's "hey y'all, God bless us." - the one dogreed gives to "everybody".

But in fact, what Tiny Tim actually says was "God bless us, every one!", meaning something like "God bless us all," or "God bless us, each and every one of us" and which is repeated on the last page.

http://books.google.pl/books?id=MlMHAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=a+christmas+carol&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ONkOVIOdI-fnyQO7zYHQCA&redir_esc=y#v=snippet&q=%22god%20bless%20us%20every%20one%22&f=false

There's a discussion about this common misquotation, which goes back at least to the 1870s, here:

http://books.google.pl/books?id=Jldiza39QrcC&pg=PA54&dq=%22god+bless+us+everyone%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=cdEOVIXJKMu6ygOB8YDgDw&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22god%20bless%20us%20everyone%22&f=false

So it's back to the drawing board for that one. They are interchangeable. From Oxford Online:

Everyone = Every person: "everyone needs time to unwind."
Everybody = Every person: "everybody agrees with his views."

I see absolutely no subtle difference of meaning between those two example sentences.

douglas.bryant has already mentioned Fowler. In the entry on 'everyone, everybody' in The Merriam Webster Dictionary of English Usage, the only discussion is about what pronoun usually follows them - there is absolutely nothing about any possible difference in meaning or shade.

Look up 'everybody' in most dictionaries and usage books and they simply refer you to 'everyone'. If there were these differences people are talking about here, why do no dictionaries or usage books refer to them, I wonder? Why are there no usage notes explaining the difference?

I love to say everyone and not (sigh) that other word. I hate the other word. Why? simple. I HATE THE NUMBER EIGHT!!! And as you can imagine if people don't say everyone THAT REALLY TICKS ME OFF!!! Alright i'm finished. teacher: Did everybody finish? Me: OH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!

I´d like to thank you all for this nice help ( :