Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: any vs every

I'm very often undecided between using any or every.
Is there a golden rule I should know?
For example, should I say "Any real-valued function ..." or "Every 
real-valued function ..."?
Kiuhnm

 real-valued function ..."?
Qualunque... ogni... non mi sembra cosě diverso dall'italiano.
Tschau,
Enrico il Pentolaio.
-- 
Five by five. 

 Qualunque... ogni... non mi sembra cosě diverso dall'italiano.
I wouldn't make it so simple.
Kiuhnm

 I wouldn't make it so simple.
I wouldn't make it so simple either. I'd say either qualunque or qualsiasi 
vs. ogni. 


ad esempio, chi sa dirmi quando si usa anybody e quando everybody?
-- 
silenzio:
graffia la pietra
la voce delle cicale

 ad esempio, chi sa dirmi quando si usa anybody e quando everybody?
Seriously?
Ok, I'll just copy down what Michael Swan says about "any and every", in 
case it might be useful.
******************
"Any" and "every" can both be used to talk in general about all the members 
of a class or group.
- Any/every child can learn to swim
The meaning is not quite the same. "Any" looks at things one at a time: it 
means "whichever one you choose", "this or that or the other". "Every" looks 
at things together: its meaning is closer to "all", "this and that and the 
other". Compare:
- "Which newspaper would you like?" "It doesn't matter. Any one."
 (= "one or another or another") (NOT every one)
- On the stand there were newspapers and magazines of every kind.
(= "one and another and another") (NOT ... magazines of any kind)
******************
Uhm... non vedo perchč non potrei dire "any kind"...
Tschau,
Enrico il Pentolaio.
P.S. Nella mia frase di prima, se avessi scritto "in case it be useful" 
sarebbe stato troppo formale, vero?
-- 
Five by five. 

 Uhm... non vedo perchč non potrei dire "any kind"...
Perhaps bacause my question is less trivial than you first thought :-)
Kiuhnm

 Perhaps bacause my question is less trivial than you first thought :-)
Oh well, it's not like I can't sleep because of that.
:-)


 Uhm... non vedo perchè non potrei dire "any kind"...
Perché significherebbe "one OR another OR another".  :-)
Se chiedo "Do you sell magazines of *any* kind?", voglio sapere se vende
riviste (un tipo qualsiasi va bene) oppure non ne vende per nulla.
Se invece chiedo "Do you sell magazines of *every* kind?", voglio sapere se
vende ogni tipo di riviste (di attualità, di sport, di viaggio, ecc.)
oppure se vende solo alcuni tipi di riviste.
AFAIU!
-- 
-- 
"And the whole Earth was of one language, and of one speech". 
(Genesis 11,1)

 oppure se vende solo alcuni tipi di riviste.
Ok. Pero' in italiano non ci vedo niente di male a dire "vendeva riviste di 
qualunque tipo" come alternativa a "vendeva riviste di ogni tipo". Sbaglio 
io?


 Sbaglio io?
You were right to give your simple but elegant explanation. Although there
may be some idiomatic differences in usage between 'qualunque' and 'any',
that would be the case with any two corresponding words in Italian and
English. One would have to learn about these differences by example, with a
context, as with prepositions. Asking for some general explanation is either
just foolishness or laziness, and the like should be pointed to a
dictionary. The fact that you can construct an interogative sentence that
works with 'any kind' is illustrative of the idiomatic property, but you can
also make the original sentence negative and 'any' will work: 'On the stand
there were no newspapers or magazines of any kind.' Just to further
illustrate the idiomatic nature of this topic, you can also say this: 'On
the stand there were newspapers and magazines of any type you could
imagine.' Granted that 'every type' would be preferred, using 'any type' is 
still acceptable in this context.

 wrote in message
news:4634bbf4$0$36445$4faf...@reader5.news.tin.it...

I would tend to choose "any" in this case, and in other cases involving
Mathematics, although both are used.  "Any" refers to one of the entire
group. You can't "prove that for every value of x, y  = n" - that would
involve an infinite series of proofs. You can "prove that for any (one)
value of x, y = n", and after repeating the proof with different values
assigned to x, deduce that the proof is valid for every value of x. As
Enrico quoted from Swan, «"Any" looks at things one at a time: it means
"whichever one you choose"».
Joe from Massachusetts

 "whichever one you choose"».
And what about this:
"Every house in our street was decorated".
"Each house in our street was decorated".
The latter is surely correct, but the former?
Kiuhnm

 wrote in message
news:463773b7$0$10622$4faf...@reader2.news.tin.it...

Each house on our street was decorated in a unique pattern dictated by the
owner's quirks.
Every house on our street was decorated with the usual colorful holiday
lights.
Joe from Massachusetts

 lights.
That's very interesting. Now it seems obvious, but it didn't before!
Kiuhnm