Every

Yes, but more natural would be "only one or two in a thousand" or "only one or two per thousand."

By the way, if this is a real example, since when you have a divorce, TWO people get divorced, that sentence might be better rephrased regarding married couples. If it were really one one in a thousand people, then you'd need two thousand to get to the two people in the divorce.

Strictly speaking, the every is still optional, but for some reason, when you invert the order, as you have done, it sounds better to have it.

I was thinking about this after I posted.  "One in a thousand" can be almost an idiom for "very, very few" but if you say "one in every thousand" is sounds more scientific. It's as though the first ("a thousand") is an estimate, but the second is an actual measurement. So for scientific writing, I'd recommend that you keep the every, but in conversation, you don't need it.

Grammar Geek wrote:

Yes, but more natural would be "only one or two in a thousand" or "only one or two per thousand." By the way, if this is a real example, since when you have a divorce, TWO people get divorced, that sentence might be better rephrased regarding married couples. If it were really one one in a thousand people, then you'd need two thousand to get to the two people in the divorce.

What do one one and get to mean here?