Difference Between Persons and People
Person and People are two words that are often confused because of the similarity between appearing. The word ‘person’ refers to an individual human being while the word ‘people’ refers to the class of persons or groups of individuals. This is the important difference between people and people.
Someone mentioned the living body of a human being. Look at the two sentences
1. It is a joyful person.
2. It is a nice person.
In both the sentences mentioned above the use of the word ‘person’ shows a human being or individual. The word ‘people’ can’t replace the word ‘person’ in both the sentences given above.
‘Persons’ on the other hand can be used as the plural of the word ‘person’ and would mean individuals associated with a job or duty as in the sentence ‘the team that takes care of job of evaluation consists of experienced persons. ”
On the other hand the word ‘people’ refers to individuals of land or country as in expressions like ‘the people of Australia’ or the people of Connecticut. The word ‘people’ is often used as collective noun and plural form ‘peoples’ does not exist.
Now the word ‘person’ should not be used when the name of a country is used. For example the expression ‘ persons of Australia’ is incorrect. On the other hand ‘the people of Australia’ is the correct form of expression. These are important differences between the two words ‘people’ and ‘people’.