Is it correct to write
The site provides free knowledge for everybody who have an internet connection
or is it rather
… for everybody who has …
English Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this communityIs it correct to write
The site provides free knowledge for everybody who have an internet connection
or is it rather
… for everybody who has …
It should be "has", singular. An explanation can be found in A comprehensive grammar of the English language.
CoGEL § 6.12 There are formal grounds for saying that, just as the traditionally unmarked gender category is masculine, so the unmarked number category is singular. The compound indefinite pronouns someone, everybody, nothing, etc are singular, and have no plural counterparts (*someones, *everybodies, *nothings); yet they themselves can refer to more than one entity, and be notionally plural :
A: Did you see anyone in the library?
B: Yes, several people.
*No, several people.
Similarly, the substitute pronouns any and none are notionally often associated with plural number; but, according to prescriptive grammatical tradition, they are singular, and hence in formal English they are generally required to agree with a singular verb.
The interrogative pronouns who and what are similar to any and none in that they are treated as singular for subject-verb concord, even though they may imply a plural answer:
A: Who's coming to the party? B: Most of our neighbours.
A: What's on the menu today? B: Lots of things.Note
[a] In the absence of a singular/plural distinction in the 2nd person pronoun, plural reference is sometimes indicated by lexical additions, eg: you people, you boys, and (esp AmE) you guys.
[b] The low-prestige plural form youse /ju:z/ is current in Northern AmE and certain areas of Britain such as Liverpool and Glasgow. In Southern AmE, by contrast, the singular/plural distinction has been re-formed through suffixation of the originally plural form: You-all (y'all) is widely used on all social levels in Southern AmE (always with a plural meaning by those to whom the form is native, although often misunderstood as a singular by outlanders). There is also a colloquial genitive y'all's, as in:
I really like y'all's new car. ['your family's new car']
It should be born in mind that there are exceptions to this rule;
Besides cases of the type just shown there are tag questions.
This is confirmed by the following ngram. It can be seen that the use of the plural is exceedingly rare in comparison.