People versus Persons

Felix asks, “I was just wondering when it was appropriate to use people as opposed to persons.”

There is some confusion regarding the two terms, especially because their meaning and usage suffered a mutation along the centuries. Both derive from Latin, but from different words.

Person derives from persona, which refers to an individual. People, on the other hand, derives from populum, and it refers to a group of persons sharing a culture or social environment.

Person is a singular form, and its plural is persons. Over the time, however, many writers started to adopt people as the plural form of person, and nowadays it is widely accepted. Notice that legal and very formal texts still use persons as the plural form.

One distinction that was proposed was to use persons as long as there was a countable number of individuals (e.g., 67 persons left the school) and people when such a number was large and indefinite (e.g., the people left the stadium quickly). The rule did not catch on, though, and some writers still use people even when there is a definite or small number of individuals.

Finally, people can also be used in the plural form (e.g., the peoples of Asia) when it refers to the different cultural groups that live in a certain region.

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Daniel Scocco on October 2, 2007 | Filed Under Misused Words

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15 Responses to “People versus Persons”

Maeve on October 2nd, 2007 1:30 pm

Daniel,
A really interesting post.

I can see why the rule didn’t catch on. It may stem from the legal use, but “persons” seems to me to have a somewhat stilted and snooty connotation. I picture a society woman in an old Marx Brothers film, nose in the air, demanding to know “Who are those persons?”
Daniel on October 2nd, 2007 1:47 pm

Indeed Maeve!
Felix on October 3rd, 2007 4:27 am

Interesting. I didn’t know that peoples was actually a word.

So in any case, there is no real distinction between persons and people other than the pronunciation?
Daniel on October 3rd, 2007 9:13 am

Yes there are, as explained, but if you are worried about which one you should use as the plural of person, than yes you can choose the one you prefer.
60 in 3 on October 3rd, 2007 3:24 pm

So would it be the people or peoples of the United States? I would think people since it refers to a single nation, but the name of the US implies multiple types of people (one for each state), or am I being too nit picky?

Gal
Daniel on October 3rd, 2007 3:37 pm

Gal, probably you could say both, but they mean different things.
Tyree on October 5th, 2007 9:09 pm

I think I understand this. In Gal’s example, the people of the United States would mean the general population of the nation and the peoples of the United States would refer to the different cultural groups within the United States?

That being said, would the use of persons as opposed to people just be more of a style preference? For example, the persons of the Christian Rite would mean the same thing as the people of the Christian Rite?
yasmin on October 9th, 2007 5:34 am

i really wanted to to improbe my grammar nd writing im quiet good student in my class i was reding on bengali medium but now i have to face real life i mean the university life life which is on english i know english but for my lackness of grammar nd wrighting knowledge i always used to fail now but thanks to god i am not in a university now i am trying to get admission in islamic university .whisch is very tough if i dont know engliush very well please help me to keeep me out from here.it will be pleasure if u do it as soon as possible
yasmin on October 9th, 2007 5:37 am

i think wrigting is quiet tough if we dont wright every day .we must write on any topic every day then must give it to teacher to correct it on this way we can improve our wrighting
Jon on November 28th, 2007 2:22 am

You gave the example above of “the people left the stadium quickly” as something that is ‘large and indefinite.’ You should know that the size of the mass of persons has absolutely nothing to do with the grammatical form assigned to it. That would be like saying that the noun ’stars’ should be amount, rather than number, because the number of them is ‘large and indefinite.’
Daniel Scocco on January 30th, 2008 2:19 pm

Jon, where did you read the claim that the mass of persons had anything to do with the grammatical form?

The article mentions that this was a proposed distinction, but it did not catch on. No one said it was a grammatical rule.
nova on April 15th, 2008 1:34 pm

My proffessor always tell to ignore “persons” everytime I read it

on a book or whatever! She’s an American lady and she thinks that

it’s not right to say “persons”, “people” would be better.

Thank you Daniel
nova on April 15th, 2008 1:36 pm

Correct myself:

“tell me”
PreciseEdit on April 15th, 2008 6:19 pm

Nova–you have just experienced the reason why many professors should be ignored everytime they speak.

Rules? Probably not. However, these terms do have slightly different usages.

Here’s our guide:
Person/persons–refers to an individual or individuals. [Your Honor, these four persons are innocent.]
People–refers to the group. [The people of China are as diverse as species of fish in the sea. The people in the back are guilty.]

The question, therefore, is whether you are referring to individuals as separate entities or as a collective. That being said, we tend to use “people” in most cases as this is acceptable in nearly every situation. Most people won’t mind, though a few persons might.
nova on April 15th, 2008 11:11 pm

Oh! got it now Thank you really for your response!

regards