"PERSONS" IS BEGGING FOR RETIREMENT

Emilio Bernal Labrada

Yes, you read it right -even though it sounds ungrammatical. And no --sorry-- we're not talking about would-be retirees hopefully awaiting their turn do some "double dipping". It's about the need to "retire" the word persons from a proliferation of expressions in which it's not needed.

We could start, for example, by "retiring" it from the name of the most important U.S. association of senior citizens (using the word loosely, since anyone qualifies at age 50, which is about the half-life of more people than ever). I should know, since I've been a member longer than I care to acknowledge. They call themselves the "American Association of Retired Persons," which begs the question: what about cats, dogs and other pets? Don't they ever get to retire?

Frankly, I should think that designation is discriminatory and anti-animal and could warrant a suit (swat?) in defense of those poor creatures who can't defend themselves and have been endlessly used and abused by our system, without so much as a thought about their right to enjoy their old age in peace and dignity.

But seriously, shouldn't that be "... Association of Retirees"? ... Or perhaps "...Senior Citizens," since not all members are actually retired from a paying job, are receiving a pension, or have ceased to work? Whatever. What's really out of place is what the Brooklynese would call "poissons".

But we digress. The point is that persons is a superfluous word in most cases, the AARP being only its most flagrant misuser, since they are constantly beating us over the head with it on the airwaves and in print (what with the need to save Social Security, Medicare, etc.).

Quite possibly, the most common abuse is "people think..." (could they be talking about penguins?). Which is, folks, by way of bringing up the fact that the plural of person is properly not --as you would surmise-- persons, but people. Take that, you people at the "American Association of...." Well, you get the point. But --sticking to the subject-- strictly speaking it may be legitimate to say that people think, since it hasn't been established that animals do not, although some argue that they do think in some not-quite-human sense. Still, the concept might be better expressed with something along the lines of "it's commonly thought", since the plain statement "people think" doesn't really tell us anything new. It's akin to "animals live" or "plants exist" Then there are expressions such as "people's houses", "people's cars," "people's clothes," etc. Thanks very much for explaining this to us. Otherwise we might think that houses, cars and clothes did not belong to people, but maybe to chipmunks, right?

Well, persons, right about now's a good time to say thanks for stopping by and hope you'll be retiring very soon... or at least joining an appropriately named association.