The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #54276   Message #839732
Posted By: Declan
03-Dec-02 - 12:52 PM
Thread Name: BS: Internet Posting for Dummies
Subject: RE: BS: Internet Posting for Dummies
You're right Kat. Sorry for sending you off throught the dictionaries to prove it.

If it was collective the correct form would be People is stupid, but obviously People are stupid is more correct.

The way I learned it at school, as far as I remember, people was the plural of person. The word "persons" seems to be a more recent usage. In any event I still think greg stephens' apostrophe was correct.

This gets confusing - if people is already plural how can it have a plural, and yet phrases such as the peoples of many regions are in widespread use.

Anyway as I say my favourite Peoples are the ones from Donegal and Clare.