Grammar

[dmsurti]

What is the difference between "anybody" and "anyone"? When to use them?

[smudge]

If you go to Google & type in 'anybody or anyone definitions' it will have the answers for you. I know 'cos I just looked.

[Sylday]

They mean the same thing - any person whatever (of either sex). But note that if you separate the "any" from "body" or "one", they can have different meanings. For example, "was any body found in the wreckage?" where "body" means a corpse, not a live person. And "you can catch any one of three trains to London", which of course doesn't refer to a person at all.

[smudge]

Prior to my first posting, I also thought the two words meant the same thing, so I looked on my Wordmaster & as suspected was correct. I only mentioned the site on Google for dmsutri to peruse, out of interest for him/her.

[smudge]

*dmsurti

[Quizmonster]

I'm not sure what Smudge's 'Wordmaster' even is, but the plain fact is that - in modern usage - there is no difference whatever between 'anybody' and 'anyone'. If you click here, that will link you to the Yourdictionary web-page. Once there, type in 'anybody' and click on 'Go' and it will offer you 'any person; anyone' as the meaning. Then go back and type in 'anyone' and it offers 'any person'. In other words, the two are synonymous.

In addition, the different meanings of the words when joined and separate...as in 'any body' or 'any one'...is fully explained there, just as Sylday outlined above.

[smudge]

Yes that's exactly what I did quizmonster! Also, I'm surprised you've never heard of a Wordmaster. They are made by Franklin & come in very handy for crosswords, etc. Mind you, as you are so intelligent, you probably wouldn't need one! :-/

[Quizmonster]

Dear Smudge, I just googled Wordmaster+Franklin, so now I do know what one is! Thanks for that. Someone even bought me a similar device as a present a few years ago. I occasionally have a look at it, but it often comes up with plausible-sounding words which - unfortunately - neither the OED nor Chambers has ever heard of! Your one may be more reliable, of course.

Personally, I treat the crosswords I do as 'puzzles'...ie something for me to work out rather than handing the problem over to a mechanical/electronic device to solve. (That's not a criticism of you, by the way...each to his/her own...just a statement of my approach.)

PS I do hope you weren't being unkind in your reference to my being "so intellgent". It seems I was 'unbright' enough to misunderstand what you'd said earlier, having misinterpreted your words "I thought the two words meant the same thing" to suggest that they didn't. Thick as two short planks, me!

[Ewood27]

Really, QM, I'm surprised at you. It's illegal now to be as thick as two short planks. You have to be intellectually challenged or something equally silly instead!
There is also the case of "no-one" an "nobody", to which pretty well all of the above answers apply also, but if you spell "no-one" without the hyphen it looks like an old word for mid-day,as in "I'll meet thee at noone a sennight hence".

[Quizmonster]

As you suggest E, an unhyphenated 'no-one' looks like an archaism for 'noon'. The problem with throwing hyphens away, as Americans are now doing en masse - a practice we will doubtless follow - is the fact that it often creates difficulties rather than easing matters. The first time I saw the word 'seaurchins' in print, I took it to be a French word I was unfamiliar with, probably pronounced roughly as 'sore-shang'. Only after a double-take did I realise it was actually 'sea-urchins'! In much the same way, their 'coopt' looks as if it might be Afrikaans perhaps or an archaic version of 'cooped' rather than 'co-opt' = to elect into. When something is actually useful, why ever throw it away?

[IndieSinger]

Coworkers!

[Quizmonster]

That's my favourite, too, Indie! I should have put it in above.

I amused the mostly-American participants at another Q & A website some years ago by asking them how to 'ork' a 'cow'. You wouldn't believe some of the responses I got!