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Sat 7 Sep, 2013 08:19 pm
Fill in the blank: "The pool must be making a ton of money because everyone and his brother, sister, son and daughter ___ there that day."
On the one hand it's clear that if you replace 'everyone' with a different singular noun, say, 'Millionaire Bob', then the verb is definitely 'were' according to the rule for compound nouns, and if you replace the 'and' with 'along with' then the verb is definitely 'was', but in the sentence as written, 'was' feels more right because 'everyone' very strongly demands a singular verb, but 'were' seems to be more in line with the rules of grammar as I understand them.
"Everyone and his brother" is an emphatic idiomatic form of "everyone". It does not mean that each person present was (a) male and (b) had a brother and (c) was accompanied by him. "Everyone" (each person) is singular, and thus is followed in the idiom by "his". Phrases such as "and his brother", "and his dog" "and his mother/father/kid sister" etc are intensifiers and do not affect the singular nature of "everyone".
@contrex,
That's right, of course.
To each his own.
This reminds me of the case of "none". It is often plural.
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