| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. |
A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. 1996.
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3. Word Choice: New Uses, Common Confusion, and Constraints
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| § 226. people / persons |
| As a term meaning “a body of persons sharing a culture,” people is a singular noun, as in As a people the Pueblo were noteworthy for their peacefulness. Its plural is peoples: the many and varied peoples of West Africa. But when used to mean “human beings,” people is plural and has no corresponding singular form. It is simply not English to say A people came up and asked me what time it was. If this seems odd, it really is not. A similar situation applies to the term for “people” in Spanish, Italian, Russian, and many other languages. Some grammarians have insisted that people is a collective noun that should not be used as a substitute for persons when referring to a specific number of individuals. By this thinking you should say Six persons (not people) were arrested during the protest. | 1 |
| But people has always been used in such contexts, and almost no one bothers with the distinction any more. Persons is still preferred in legal contexts, however, as in Vehicles containing fewer than three persons may not use the left lane during rush hours. Only the singular person is used in compounds involving a specific numeral: a six-person car, a two-person show. But people is used in other compounds: people mover, people power. These examples are exceptions to the general rule that plural nouns cannot be used in such compounds; note that we do not say teethpaste or books-burning. | 2 |
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| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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