I have always thought of "everyone" as singular, ergo, "everyone is
entitled to his or her own opinion." In recent years, however, one is
much more apt to hear or read "...to their own opinion." I suppose
this is due to two factors: 1) feminism, which deplored the use of
"his" to represent both genders in such a sentence, resulting in the
awkward "his or her," and 2) what Bill Safire calls the notional sense
of the pronoun (i.e., "everyone," if not plural in form, represents a
plural concept). Safire has also written that "if enough of us are
wrong, we're right." That raises this question: who among us needs to
be "wrong" before we are all "right"? If 100 million people treat
"everyone" as a plural and 100 English profs and lexicographers
continue to maintain that it's singular, what then? The OED states
"The pronoun referring to 'everyone' is often plural, the absence of
common gender rendering this violation of grammatical concord
sometimes necessary." "Sometimes" necessary?! Sheesh.

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Request for Question Clarification by mvguy-ga on 01 Oct 2003 05:43 PDT

Could you please indicate exactly what you would like to see in an
answer? I can see at least three directions an answer might take. In
the meanwhile, you may find these grammatical notes interesting:
http://www.bartleby.com/61/22/T0162200.html
http://www.bartleby.com/61/36/E0253600.html
http://www.bartleby.com/61/75/H0097500.html

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Clarification of Question by nautico-ga on 01 Oct 2003 06:22 PDT

I think the three sources you cite illustrate sufficiently well the
kind of answer I sought. Thanks. The bottom line seems to be that one
can swing either way with "everyone" and number agreement.