Why does the news always say “so many persons were injured…”, as one example, instead of “people”? Why is persons acceptable when the plural of “person” is “people”? Or, so it is taught in elementary school. - Jinx
Persons has long been an acceptable alternative to “people.” Many careful users of English prefer “persons,” in fact, because this allows one to restrict “people” to its sort-of-singular meaning, as in “The American people shall not… (whatever).”
People is not (or at least was not) the plural of person. The two words come from different Latin roots. And the words are not synonymous - people can be singular, and it can refer to an uncountable number of people, while persons can only refer to a countable number. You wouldn’t say “the persons of the United States”, for example.