Quote:
Originally Posted by Perikles
You may have proof, but as you describe it, it is most certainly wrong. People in the singular has the quite specific meaning of a nation or a unity: "A king without a people..."
I checked in BNC and found 456 hits on " people is". I actually read through all these, and found none where the word people is the subject of the verb is. They were all of the type "Dealing with old people is difficult".
There are 5115 hits on "people are". A cursory glance showed that all (?) these seemed to have people the subject of are.  |
Thank you very much for the thoroughly research. I wonder why some mistakes survive revision in works of serious developers and editors. Though, in sight of the horrendous things I've read they published on Spanish subjunctive, I should not.
Regrettably, anyway I will continue to make such mistake now and then in the future as I learnt it wrongly the first time and it's brain-wired.