Is it correct to use third person ‘s’ with indefinite pronoun ‘each’?
Example: If we lose, each member of our team seeks personal potentials for improvement.
If so, is it also correct to use third person ‘s’ with an enumeration of indefinite pronouns ‘each’?
Example: If we lose, each member, each supporter, and each associate seeks personal potentials for improvement.
Answer
Yes.
The verb to seek, like most verbs, ends with an “s”, in the third person singular, but not in the plural. He seeks, but they seek.
The phrase “each member of the team” is grammatically singular. The Oxford dictionary gives examples “each battery is” and “each one of us was” using the third person singular “was” and “is” rather than the plural “were” and “are”.
Although what we are saying applies to more than one person, we are saying it apples individually to each of them, and so “each” is singular.
There are numerous instances on Google of “each man and each woman” and these are (usually) followed by singular verbs such as “has”.
Even though “each man and each woman” means even more people that just “each man”, what we have to say about them still applies individually to each of the people.
So the phrase “each member, each supporter, and each associate” is also singular and it is correct to say
If we lose, each member, each supporter, and each associate seeks..
rather than seek.
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : sema , Answer Author : davidlol
