Can I use 'persons' instead of 'people'? This is a sentence of a book: ''Many persons who have not studied mathematics confuse it with arithmetic and consider it a dry and arid science. Actually, howe

Bi Filof

Can I use 'persons' instead of 'people'? This is a sentence of a book: ''Many persons who have not studied mathematics confuse it with arithmetic and consider it a dry and arid science. Actually, however, this science requires great fantasy.'' - Sophia Kovalevski

28 jul. 2015 23:58

Antwoorden · 5

It is also a badly written passage. 1. "Dry" is the same as "arid". 2. "However" is misused. 3. "Fantasy" is the wrong word. It should be "imagination".

29 juli 2015

Generally - no. 'Persons' is a little archaic, and these days is usually only used in a legal or law enforcement context. Note that the person that wrote that died over 100 years ago!

29 juli 2015