Re: CHAT: Colectives (Re: CHAT: use of "they")

Carlos Thompson wrote:
> Well.  One of my most frequent errors in English is the use of some plurals
> I count as collectives in Spanish, like "people".  When I learned the word
> "people" I learned as translation of "gente" which is a colective in
> Spanish, and not as plural for "person".  If I'm not mistaken, "people" is
> both a plural and a colective, and usually takes the plural form of a verb:
> "people are..."
Altho people can't take singular agreement anymore, even if it refers to
a definite group, it can take the plural suffix -s, if it means
specifically "nationality" or "ethnicity" or some similar meaning, altho
it has a somewhat formal sound to it ("all the peoples of the Earth").

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