What's the difference between Everyone and Everybody?

Most people think there's no difference between "everyone" and "everybody", and for most cases you can safely believe most people. However, the difference there is.

"Everyone" is used in situations where you are pointing at, or talking about, a group of people that's present in the situation. Like, "Everyone in this party is wearing black". "Everybody" would be used to say, "Everybody will be wearing black in the party." You see, in the second case the speaker is talking about a hypothetical group of people, and not a real group that is present now.

Another example: The teacher in a class would say, "Everyone, raise your hand." And, "Keeping the city clean is everybody's responsibility." Here, "everybody" is used to refer to the people in general; whereas "everyone" in the first sentence was used for the students present in the class.

Also, "everyone", "anyone" etc is used when the group of people is small; whereas in the same situation if the group of people is large then "everybody", "anybody" is more suitable. For example, I am standing at a bus-stop with three more people, and I ask, "Anyone knows the bus for the City?" If the number of people at the bus-stop were, say, fifty, I would have used the word "anybody".

However, as I said, you can safely use these words interchangeably in almost all situations and anyone/anybody will hardly notice. The difference is very tiny and vague, and even learned people don't take it seriously as far as I know.


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