When to say ANY and EVERY

By Jin, February 14 2021

"Do you have any Jacks?" -"Yes" / "Do you have every Jack?" -"No"

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It's often difficult for English learners to use any and every. What's the difference? At first glance, sentences like "Anyone can try it" and "Everyone can try it" seem to mean the same thing.

The main difference is that any is a random pick of one or a few. However, every includes all of a set or group. However, to better understand the difference, let's look at some sentences that can show you this more clearly.

For example, a magician says, "Pick a card, any card!" In this case, you must choose only one card from a selection of 52 cards. However, if the magician were to say, "Pick every card" you would have to take all 52 cards.

What about these instructions: "Take any king," and "Take every king"? In which case would you have taken four cards? If you said the latter sentence, you're right.

Here's a visualization:

However, there is sometimes no real difference. For instance, if I put a video on YouTube, anyone and everyone can see it. Every person in the world may be able to access the video. We can also imagine a situation where any person in the world can see the video.

Ok, let's go back to the first two phrases, "Anyone can try it" versus, "Everyone can try it". Although they seem the same, there is a difference. Imagine we are offering food, perhaps a small piece of cake. A large crowd of 50 people gathers around. We offer the piece to the crowd. Would we say "Would anyone like to try it?" or "Would everyone like to try it?" If you chose the first sentence you are really starting to understand. The piece of cake is small, so only one (or maybe a few) of the people in the group can try it. For "everyone", we'd need to have enough cake for all 50 people.

Here are some examples below. Which do you think is a more common choice?