Re: "people" is not the plural of "person"
- From: Bob Cunningham <exw6sxq@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 25 Dec 2005 14:37:25 GMT
On Sat, 24 Dec 2005 18:26:34 GMT, Harvey Van Sickle
<harvey.news@xxxxxxxxxxxx> said:
> On 24 Dec 2005, Bob Cunningham wrote
> > On Fri, 23 Dec 2005 23:33:23 -0800, Evan Kirshenbaum
> ><kirshenbaum@xxxxxxxxxx> said:
> >> Bob Cunningham <exw6sxq@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> >>> [Someone] said:
> >>>> Bob Cunningham writes:
> >>>>> As Michael Quinion says at
> >>>>> http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/people.htm , "people"
> >>>>> is used for the plural of "person" as an alternative to
> >>>>> "persons",
> >>>> That is, in fact, a major distortion of what he says.
> >> Quite.
> > Copying and pasting from Michael Quinion's words at
> > http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/people.htm ,
> > From the evidence, it seems that the trend towards
> > using _people_ instead of _persons_ is accelerating
> > I'm not much concerned about anything the other poster has
> > to say, but I'd be interested in learning why you, Evan,
> > think that my remark was "quite" "a major distortion" of
> > what Michael Quinion says as quoted above.
> I don't have a dog in this race, but in your original quote from
> Quinion you didn't quote the part about "accelerating". To at
> least this bystander, your post seemed to imply that Quinion's view
> was limited to acknowleding that people is used "as an alternative"
> to the (presumably still widespread) plural form "persons".
If something is accelerating, it follows that it exists. I
inferred only that meaning from the word. Another inference
would have to do with the future, not with the present. I
could have used that inference if I had wanted to talk about
the future.
Your interpretation of "alternative" as implying less common
is interesting. My intended meaning was not that. What do
you have to say about "two alternatives", as in people have
two alternatives in choosing a water heater: gas and
electric? They are alternatives, but no third power source
is available that is nearly as commonly found as they are.
> But Quinion goes way further than that; indeed, he goes further
> than just remarking that the use of "people" as the plural is
> accelerating, and offers the view that "persons" has become
> sufficiently rare in non-technical usage that "it may not be so
> long before persons vanishes from the language except in certain
> set phrases".
> Whether those omissions amount to a major (or even minor)
> "distortion" is debatable, but the omission of his view about the
> probable demise of "persons" from common usage seems unfortunately
> selective.
My thinking and my remarks had to do with what is now, not
with what will probably be. Your remarks in the last two
quoted paragraphs are about the future.
I could say that the use of "whom" is decelerating and the
word will probably be totally obsolete at some future time,
but that wouldn't negate the fact that "whom" is now a word
in current use to some extent.
Future paradigms may have "I", "he", "she", "we", and "they"
excluded for use in a predicate, but that doesn't mean that
"It is I" and "That's he" are already to be considered
incorrect.
.
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- Re: Is that right?
- From: Salvatore Volatile
- "people" is not the plural of "person" [was: Re: Is that right?]
- From: Bob Cunningham
- Re: "people" is not the plural of "person" [was: Re: Is that right?]
- From: Mark Brader
- Re: "people" is not the plural of "person" [was: Re: Is that right?]
- From: Bob Cunningham
- Re: "people" is not the plural of "person"
- From: Evan Kirshenbaum
- Re: "people" is not the plural of "person"
- From: Bob Cunningham
- Re: "people" is not the plural of "person"
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