EACH EVERY English Grammar Lesson
Well hey there I’m Emma from mmmEnglish!
I’m here to answer each
and every one of your questions today
so stay tuned!
So which one is it then? Each or every?
It’s pretty easy to confuse these two words.
They look similar, they sound similar
but they’re not always used in the same way.
So in this lesson, we’ll go over the subtle
and important differences between these two words.
We’ll talk about the different situations
where you would use one or the other
and of course, we’ll practise a little bit together
later in the lesson.
You know that I love to make my lessons for you
very practical so we’ll get to that later on.
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‘Each’ and ‘every’ can both be used with singular nouns.
All of these nouns are singular, right?
It’s just one person or one thing.
So the words ‘each’ and ‘every’ can be used
with singular nouns that are part of a group
but there is a subtle difference.
When we use ‘each’, it emphasises or it puts more
attention on the individual.
The one person or the one thing.
More than one person came to the dinner party.
In fact, there was a whole group of people
who came to the dinner party.
But each singular individual person bought a dish
or a plate of food to share, right?
So he bought a dish,
she bought dessert,
she bought a salad,
he bought some cheese and biscuits,
right? So everyone has brought something.
Now let’s compare this to ‘every’.
‘Every’ refers to a group of individual objects
or people as one group altogether, right?
The attention is on the group as a whole so
So a group of people came to the dinner party
and all of these people brought a dish
but by using ‘every’, I’m putting emphasis on
the group as a whole, right?
Everybody here bought a dish.
Now in many situations, just like my example
about the dinner party, ‘each’ and ‘every’
can be used interchangeably with just a
small difference in meaning, right?
You could use either of them and the difference is
very subtle.
But let’s look at a few more examples to help
make that clear.
So I’m putting all business owners together
in one group there and I’m making a generalisation
about the group - all business owners.
And I’m saying that as a group,
all of those business owners are clever.
So here I’m talking about the individual teachers
at our school, each one of them is creative.
Not all teachers in general,
not the group together, but each teacher
separately at the school is creative.
Before we move on, I want to point out something
really important, something you might have been
thinking about already.
But did you notice in my earlier examples that I wrote
‘everyone’ instead of ‘every one’?
So if you want to talk about a group of people
as a whole, every person
it’s correct to use ‘every one’ or ‘every body’, right?
Every person is every one or every body.
Now ‘every one’ written in two words,
it actually puts more attention on the individuals
in the group and so it becomes a synonym
closer to ‘each’, right?
Let’s think of an example.
At school, did you have a teacher that you were kind of
scared of? Like imagine them saying:
Right? The emphasis is on the individual.
But if they said:
then the emphasis is on the group, right?
And it’s a little less scary. It’s a subtle difference
but it’s quite powerful in meaning.
Notice as well that even though we’re talking about
a group of people, ‘everyone’ and ‘everybody’
use a singular verb form
because we’re talking about the group
as a singular thing, right?
Not all of the individuals in it
but we’re talking about the group, right?
A nice trick to check if you should be using ‘everyone’
or ‘every one’ is to see if everybody works
in that sentence because then ‘everyone’ with one word
is also correct.
If everybody doesn’t work in the sentence then
‘every one’ with two words
is the correct option, right? Let’s look at an example.
Right we can say:
So let’s do a quick recap before we move on.
We use ‘each’ and ‘every’ with singular nouns.
‘Each’ puts more emphasis on the individual
within the group
and ‘every’ puts our attention on the group as a whole.
Got it?
Good!
But there’s still some important things
that you need to know.
So when you’re talking about exactly two things,
you can use ‘each’,
not when you’re talking about three or four or ten things.
Only when you’re talking about two.
I’ve got two ears,
so I can use ‘each’ to talk about my ears
but I can’t use ‘every’, alright?
I have an earring in every ear.
it sounds really quite strange like,
how many ears do you have?
Earlier I told you that ‘each’ and ‘every’ are usually used
with singular nouns
but there is a little exception or a rule
that we’ve got to talk about here.
‘Every’ can’t be used with plural nouns
but ‘each’ can be used with plural nouns
with a small change in form.
To use ‘each’ with plural nouns,
you need to add the word ‘of’.
We can’t say:
But we can say:
Now there’s not much difference in meaning
between these two correct sentences
but it’s important to notice that we do include
the article ‘the’ here.
It’s really important, right? You must use it
unless you’re using the plural determiners or pronouns
like ‘us’ or ‘them’
or ‘these’ or ‘those’, we don’t need to use the article then.
Right so let’s look at a couple of examples
of how they’re used.
It’s really important there that we are using our finger
to point at what we’re talking about.
Another useful thing to keep in mind is that ‘every’
is more commonly used with time expressions.
Now actually ‘each’ wouldn’t be wrong
in either of these sentences. You could use ‘each’ with
many of these time expressions
but ‘every’ is just more common and it usually sounds
a little more natural,
The difference is very subtle.
That’s fine.
It’s a little better, it sounds a little more natural.
So right now it’s time to see if you’ve been
paying attention through this lesson because
we’re about to practise. So I want you to see if you can
complete each of the sentences that you see up here
with the right word.
You have to think about the subtle differences.
So let’s assume that the emphasis is on the
individual cup here.
So ‘each’ would be correct because of the singular noun.
What about this one?
Yep, ‘every’ because Saturday morning is
a time expression. What about this one?
It has to be ‘each’, doesn’t it?
Because there are exactly two wrists.
Perfect.
I guess that has to be ‘every’, right?
Because we’re talking about the group as a whole.
And so when we’re talking about everyone as a group,
you need to use ‘every’.
Alright in this last example here,
let’s keep our attention on the house as a whole, okay?
Our emphasis and our attention is on the whole house
not the individual rooms inside.
So ‘every’ would be perfect
but of course, you could use ‘each’ if you were
emphasising each of the individual rooms.
All right I do have one more final question for you.
Do you remember at the start of this video when I said
that I’m here to answer each and every one
of your English questions?
So in that sentence, which option is the best option?
It’s a trick question because you could use either okay?
But you can also use them together like this.
The phrase ‘each and every’ is really common
in spoken English and it puts all of the emphasis on
the whole group but every single person in the group.
So it’s like a combination, right?
And it’s a fixed expression that you’ll see
from time to time
and you’ll see both of these words together and that’s
perfectly acceptable
especially when you are trying to emphasise
each and every person in the group is important.
So before I say goodbye to each and every one of you,
I want you to tell me in the comments if there are any
other English words like ‘each’ and ‘every’ that confuse
you a little, that you’d like me to explain more
because I’ll be making more videos just like this one
to help you understand some of the more subtle
differences between English words and help you
to sound a little more natural as you’re using English.
Now make sure you subscribe to my channel by clicking
that button right down there
and then come and check out
this lesson right here. I think you’re going to love it.
I’ll see you in there!