Question
Updated on
9 Aug 2022
- Italian
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German
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English (US)
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French (France)
Question about English (US)
Did I correctly distinguish the meaning of these two words?
Did I correctly distinguish the meaning of these two words?
Persons: less common than people. Usually used not in plural to design someone singularly rather than as a community.
People: it refers to all those living in a city or even in a small community. This word is far more commonly used than perons.
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9 Aug 2022
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- English (US)
Persons and people are both very common and used frequently
Person means an individual, a human being. Persons of course is the plural
At a restaurant: do you have a reservation? How many persons?
People means persons forming or belonging to a particular group (such as a nation, class, ethnic group, country, family), a community, a group of persons regarded as being employees, followers, companions or subjects of a ruler, a person's ancestors, relatives or family.
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- English (US)
Persons and people are both very common and used frequently
Person means an individual, a human being. Persons of course is the plural
At a restaurant: do you have a reservation? How many persons?
People means persons forming or belonging to a particular group (such as a nation, class, ethnic group, country, family), a community, a group of persons regarded as being employees, followers, companions or subjects of a ruler, a person's ancestors, relatives or family.
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- Italian
@newenglandgenie I thought of the word "persons" as being a synonym for "human beings". Is this really the case?
Are both my word descriptions fine?
Are both my word descriptions fine?
- English (US)
@Thecastleonthehill96 Your descriptions aren’t entirely accurate.
Person can be used in different ways such as “on your person”. It’s different than people and isn’t more or less used.
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Traditionally "persons" was the word used when counting the number of people
- There are four persons at the table
And people was used when you didn't specify the number of people
- I don't care what other people think
But these days, "people" is used for both situations
I prefer "persons" because it sounds correct, so I'm happy when I hear it in old movies etc
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Deleted user
@Thecastleonthehill96
The synonym for human beings is mankind or humankind
A human being is a person
The word "man" means person, but we also use the word man to identify an adult male
Woman = person with a womb, and we use that to describe an adult female (don't let anyone tell you it means something else)
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