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Everyone want their homes to be in the centres of cities

Is this correct usage or is there any alternative way to convey the same?

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3 Answers 3

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First of all, "everyone" is singular: "Everyone wants ..."

You can't always count on English words making sense, but in this case, it turns out that "everyone" can be broken down into logical components, "every" "one" = "each" "one" --> singular.

The rest of the sentence is a little more complicated.

Traditionally it was taught that using a plural pronoun for a singular individual was incorrect. Therefore, both

"Everyone want their ..."

and

"Everyone wants their ..."

would have been considered wrong, and the traditional English-teacher-approved construction would be:

"Everyone wants his ..."

even if the gender of "everyone" is unknown or mixed.

But the people here, on this site, accept the plural pronoun "their" as a gender-neutral option for use as a singular pronoun (since, as many people like to point out, it has been used that way "for hundreds of years").

However, this does not mean that [everyone's] "home" needs to become plural. I guess this is subject to debate, but I feel that each person really only has one home:

"Everyone has his one true home."

"Everyone has her one true home." (if we are talking about females)

"Everyone has their one true home." (acceptable here, now, but not to Mrs. Elliot in her 9th grade English class if I remember right)

So your sentence ought to have a singular verb, a singular pronoun (even if it is the gender-neutral plural-singular option: "their"), and a singular direct object (in this case, since the word is "home"):

Everyone wants their home to be in the city centre.

Everyone wants their home to be in a city centre.

Everyone wants their home to be in the centre of the city.

Everyone wants their home to be in the centre of a city.

would all work.

Traditionalists would specify a traditional (masculine if the gender is unknown or mixed) singular pronoun:

Everyone wants his home to be in the city centre.

etc. as above.

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Not quite right.

First of all "want" needs to be wants.

Everyone wants their homes to be in the centres of cities.

Because you are using the plural of "homes", it is okay to use the plural of "centres" and "cities". This does sound a little like everyone has more than one home, though.

You could instead used the singular of "home", in which case "centres" and "cities" need to be singular too:

Everyone wants their home to be in the centre of a city.

If you were speaking more generally about people's preferences you could also remove "their" and say:

Everyone wants homes in the centres of cities.

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I think the sentence should just be changed as:

Everyone wants their homes to be in the centres of cities

Everyone it self is singular though it takes a plural pronoun they.Everyone usually takes a singular verb.So the verb should be wants but not want .The verb does not depend on the subject that follows.It does not matter whether it is home or homes but since the pronoun is their homes, cities and centres can be in the plural.

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