The Grammar Doctor

Q. Is this sentence grammatically correct?
If everyone stayed home, everyone would be going to college with the same knuckleheads they went to high school with.

A. This sentence would be acceptable in informal conversation, but in careful writing, it is not correct. The problem is that indefinite pronouns like "everyone" are singular (We would never use a plural verb with them.), but "they" is plural. We need to be consistent in pronoun number. A word can't be plural in one place in the sentence and singular elsewhere in the same sentence.
Also the sentence ends with a preposition. Some people would consider that to be incorrect.


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