Today on LetThemTalk we're answering a question from a student of mine in Paris, Giàu and he asks "what's the plural of PERSON is it PERSONS or PEOPLE?" Good question, so here's the answer Giàu and everybody else the singular, for one individual, is PERSON. We can all agree on that I hope and the plural is PEOPLE, ok, that was easy.
Thank you for watching see you next time bye, bye, ok, ok, ok, it's a bit more complicated than that. Let me explain.
Yes, PEOPLE is the plural of PERSONS. "Only 8 people know where the treasure is buried." "Ten people came to the meeting." "I saw a lot of people riding bicycles." For a few situations, we can use PERSONS now, before I tell you when you can use PERSONS we need to have a quick look at the history.
PERSON is a Latin word that came to us from French in the early 13th century, PEOPLE also came from French in the late 13th century and originally PEOPLE meant a crowd or persons in general.
It replaced an Anglo-Saxon word LEDE which we don't say any more (I've read that it's still used in some Scottish dialects but I haven't heard it myself) and to a lesser extent, PEOPLE also replaced the word FOLK which is still used today though it's a much less common words than PEOPLE with a slightly different meaning.
So for a long time, PERSONS was the plural of PERSON and we used PERSONS when we knew the number of individuals, if we had a plural but without a specific number, we would use another word — PEOPLE.
So for example "five persons were in the room." but "from my hotel window I could see a lot of people." In the sense of a crowd.
However, PEOPLE gradually replaced PERSONS as the plural for all situations.
Interestingly, when the word "PEOPLE" entered the English language it was a singular noun, PEOPLE IS such as in the King James Bible of 1611.
"The people is hungry and weary and thirsty, in the wilderness." 2 Samuel 17:29.
