Strunk and White Were Wrong This Time

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Instant Quiz

Can you improve the sentence below? Scroll to the bottom of today’s post for the answer.

Five different people called to ask about the bicycle we were selling on Craiglist.

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Can you find the error in this sentence?

Although we thought we had every detail covered, three people’s invitations didn’t arrive in time.

I can’t either. But according to Strunk and White’s classic book The Elements of Style, this sentence is wrong. It should be “three persons’ invitations didn’t arrive in time.”

It’s simple math: “The word people is best not used with words of number, in place of persons. If of “six people” five left went away, how many would be left? Answer: One people.

Who makes the rules of English? The answer is that we do. Not English teachers. Not lexicographers (the people who research words for dictionaries). Not editors.

The people who use English every day are the ones who make the rules. Of course it’s hard to track changes! That’s why you’ll see teenager in one magazine and teen-ager in another one. Or catalogue in one book and catalog in another book.

Strunk and White’s book is a wonderful guide to good writing. But it’s not infallible. And they were wrong about people. Just about every publisher in the world allows usages like “a hundred people” and “fifteen people.”

Strunk and White were free to make up their own rule, of course. But we are just as free to ignore it.

(And – just for the record – I think Strunk and White’s sentence is clumsy. “If of ‘six people,’ five left the room….Gack. Here’s my version: “If there were ‘five people,’ and one left the room….” And I don’t like “is best not used” either. Listen: nobody’s perfect. Not even Strunk and White.)

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Instant Quiz ANSWER

“Different” is unnecessary. If five people called you, of course they were different. Note – too – that I disagree with Strunk and White. I think “five people” is fine. We don’t have to say “five persons.”

Five people called to ask about the bicycle we were selling on Craiglist.  CORRECT

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