I am reminded … that there is one word which is misused by every journalist and every author wherever the English language is written — the word ‘people.’ Mr. Howells, for instance, in one of his delightful novels speaks of ‘three people’ sitting in a room. Now, if two of these ‘people’ were to withdraw, one ‘people’ would be left — and very much left! It seems unnecessary to state — and yet it is necessary to state it — that ‘people’ is a collective noun, and can properly be applied only to a nation, a tribe, a class, a community. It is quite admissible to say, ‘How are your people?’ — meaning your family, your clan; but such a phrase as ‘Fifty people were injured,’ or ‘A hundred people were present,’ is sloppy English. ‘Persons’ and ‘people’ are not convertible terms. For twenty-five years or more, I have kept my eye on this little word ‘people,’ and I have yet to find a single American or English author who does not misuse it.
[The Critic, Jan. 16, 1897, p. 43]
Prof. W. H. Bishop of Yale writes to me: — “I must say that the remarks your correspondent writes you about ‘people’ are the kind of thing that make me very tired. Since when has English become so logical that you must refrain from saying ‘three people’ because, then, you might have to say ‘one people.’ You are not obliged to do anything of the kind, and never will be, unless all good writers agree upon it, and then — for that is the way language is made — it will be proper to do so. Who is this exalted parrot, who has not yet discovered that English is a mass of illogicalities, accepted by convention? And so is every other language as well. The different idioms are not obliged to square among themselves; they are so because they have been adopted, because they are so.”
[The Critic, Feb. 6, 1897, p. 98]
Post a Comment