We’re person people

“Persons.”  For a moment, I was angry at the fact that people thought such a concept existed.

I mean, multiple persons are people, right?  Not quite.

See, we use ‘people‘ when we’re talking about the masses:  People say, people do, my people, etc.

We say persons when there are multiple individuals mentioned:  all interested persons, any such persons, persons of equal size and weight, etc.

In other words, people are impersonal, persons are not.

So the presidential candidate that runs on the platform of being a ‘people person‘ is really trying to tell everyone that he’s superficially quite charming and popular.

The term ‘people person‘ then, if you truly think about the meanings of the words, is quite the insult.  It means that the person is either so shallow that he or she gets along with everyone easily or that they’re so open and unoffensive (read: vanilla) that everyone likes them.

I know what people think they mean when they say ‘people person.’  They think that they’re extroverted and personable.  Those are good qualities.  That’s good.   It is admirable to be extroverted and self-evidently pleasing to be personable, but perhaps what we should be striving to be is not people people, but person persons.

“Persons.”  For a moment, I was angry at the fact that people thought such a concept existed. I mean, multiple persons are people, right?  Not quite. See, we use ‘people‘ when we’re talking about the masses:  People say, people do, my people, etc. We say persons when there are multiple individuals mentioned:  all interested persons,…