Art of Eloquence Blog — spelling RSS



Two Persons or More?

I grew up, as many of you, learning my plurals:  One pickle.  Two pickles.  One man.  Two men.  One mountain lion. Two mountain lions. One person.  Two people.  So it bugs me when I see road signs in the carpool lane that say, "Two Persons or more" Can you imagine your 2nd grade teacher's response to, "I want to invite six persons to my birthday party."   Do you think your boss might question your education if you suggested, "I just emailed 642 persons the details for our next business luncheon." So is it incorrect grammar to say 'persons' or just poor spelling?  Actually it's neither!  According to my research including this article, the word persons was the original plural of...

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