At the beginning of this academic year, I wrote a small letter in the blog about the difference in language between the UK and the USA. I was reminded of this twice yesterday. 

Firstly, going through security at Boise airport, I saw a sign that warned “persons” about removing all metal items before walking through the detector. The second was on the highway in to Seattle where a sign warned that this was a car lane for vehicles with two or more “persons”.

I do not know whether this is a language difference or just poor grammar. I would certainly welcome your comments.

For me, the plural of person is people and always will be. It even takes less letters to write “people” instead of “persons”.

I think I will go and prepare a lesson about persons, childs, sheeps and gooses!

Andrew Derry