Timeline for Is there a subtle difference between "somebody" and "someone", "anybody" and "anyone"?
Current License: CC BY-SA 2.5
9 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Dec 7, 2018 at 17:23 | comment | added | Swift | I heard explanation given by a writer that , quote, we say "one" to designate a singular, unique person, even if it stays unnamed or unknown, quote. Anyone becomes 'any other "one"' and everyone is 'every "one" available'. | |
| Jun 8, 2017 at 5:42 | comment | added | user97589 | I can't explain precisely why, but I'd probably exclusively use "someone" when I'm implying something like "I know who but I won't tell (because it doesn't matter or it won't do much to the listener if I said the name). Ngram for "someone told me, somebody told me", for example, might be indicating this tendency, I'm not sure books.google.com/ngrams/… | |
| Jun 8, 2017 at 5:31 | comment | added | user97589 | (not a native speaker)* I agree. I'd tend to use "somebody" in contexts when the person is not known to me/speaker, while "someone" is favored in general contexts or when mentioning the person understood as "someone" is for some reason avoided. Examples provided on the Cambridge Dictionary website here dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/pronouns/… seem to support this point: I know someone who gives piano lessons. (a specific person) Somebody has obviously made a mistake. (general, we don’t know who). | |
| Dec 16, 2013 at 22:49 | vote | accept | RegDwigнt | ||
| Dec 18, 2013 at 1:16 | |||||
| Jun 1, 2012 at 11:15 | comment | added | Mark Beadles | I believe that "special someone" may be more felicitous just for prosodic reasons - "special someone" is two trochees, while "special somebody" doesn't follow a regular rhythm. | |
| Aug 24, 2010 at 12:53 | comment | added | analytik | Yes, but still it's 43k to 2.4M in favor of "someone". And of course, not everyone is a native speaker (neither am I), but I don't claim "special somebody" is wrong. I believe language is too elastic to faithfully and exactly track minor meaning differences like this in dictionaries, but I think it's safe to say that "special someone" is a more popular phrase than "special somebody", as Google result count shows. | |
| Aug 24, 2010 at 8:03 | vote | accept | RegDwigнt | ||
| Apr 13, 2011 at 13:25 | |||||
| Aug 23, 2010 at 20:05 | comment | added | Steve Melnikoff | "Special somebody" sounds OK to me. A quick Google search reveals a few uses of the phrase. | |
| Aug 23, 2010 at 18:34 | history | answered | analytik | CC BY-SA 2.5 |