Staff = employee

[Benjamin Barrett]

My issue with staff is that it is (or was) always used to refer to a group of people, not individuals.

No problem with staff members being volunteer, employees, officers, etc.

Benjamin Barrett
Seattle, WA

On Nov 8, 2011, at 2:10 PM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:

> I don't get your point. Do you think "staff" is an illegitimate word? I
> have always distinguished between employees and staff. For example, I help
> out a non-profit (is that in OED as a noun) with no employees, but plenty
> of staff, all volunteers.
> DanG
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 8, 2011 at 5:02 PM, Benjamin Barrett <gogaku at ix.netcom.com>wrote:
>
>> I have fought many battles with Japanese clients who want to talk about =
>> their "staffs" (employees) as "sutafu" is a common Japanese word. AFAIK, =
>> I have always won, but it is a losing battle.
>>
>> Today, Jimmy Wales' Wiki statement has the following =
>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:2011Appeal1):
>>
>> -----
>> Google might have close to a million servers. Yahoo has something like =
>> 13,000 staff. We have 400 servers and 73 staff.
>> -----
>>
>> Benjamin Barrett
>> Seattle, WA=

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