• wieson@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    But people is a non-countable word, like water. You don’t have one people, two people.

    When talking about peoples of [place] it’s a countable word.

    Fish is countable.

    • OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      People are countable. That’s the whole point of a census. Water can come in any amount, such as 3.5 litres. People come in discrete numbers. You can’t have .5 of a person.

      I think the thing confusing you is that it’s one of those weird English words where the singular and plural word are different. Person/people vs car/cars.

      • Pyro@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        You can still say “waters” though. For example: “The waters of Amsterdam” would collectively refer to all bodies of water in Amsterdam. Another example I came across online was “Don’t forget your waters” which referred to multiple bottles of water.