Staff = employee

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Nov 9, 2011, at 7:10 AM, Charles C Doyle wrote:
>
> And the forms that we notice are those for which the development is still in process.  Like "troop," and "minority"--as in "There are only four minorities in my class" or "Is he a minority?"
>
> --Charlie
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 8, 2011 at 7:40 PM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu> wrote:
>>
>> a fairly common development: an original collective or mass (singular) noun is reinterpreted as a zero-plural, and/or a singular (non-collective) noun develops, with a regular plural.  so: from original mass "spam" ("much spam") we get zero-plural "spam" ("many/100 spam") and ordinary count "spam" ("many/100 spams").
>>
>> arnold
>>
>
from Wilson Gray:

> Like _troop_, once only a specific unit composed of calvarymen, now
> any random, individual soldier of any branch of the Army, in addition
> to retaining its original meaning in relevant contexts.

each of these words has its own history.  the story of "spam" is one thing, the story of "troop" another, and the story of "minority" still another.

on "troop", see:

AZ, 12/8/06: Plural, mass, collective:
  http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003879.html

AZ, 1/30/07: Support our troop:
 http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004121.html

"minority" looks very different; indeed, it looks like the creation of a new noun by truncation, in this case from something like "minority people", developing to "minorities" 'members of a minority group', and then to a singular "minority" 'member of a minority group'.  from OED3 (March 2002):

U.S. A member of a minority group. Usu. in pl.

1951    Jrnl. Negro Educ. 20 330   There are also other factors operating against discrimination..direct campaigns of some local civic groups to encourage the hiring of minorities especially in white-collar jobs.

1965    Amer. Jrnl. Sociol. 71 249   A white employer's taste for discrimination may lead him to hire Negroes, females, and other identifiable minorities only at a rate sufficiently below the going rate for white workers to offset the price he places upon his taste for discrimination [etc.].

1976    Time 20 Dec. 11/1   He was worried about the need for new young blood in Government, for more women and minorities.

1985    Albuquerque (New Mexico) Jrnl. 11 Dec. a3/3   During the past year, UNM hired six minorities and 21 women.

1996    F. Popcorn & L. Marigold Clicking ii. 62   Twice as many whites as minorities owned them [sc. computers].

[OED treats _minority_ in _minority group_ etc. as an adj.; cites for this from 1919 on]

....

i don't think i'd describe this use of "minorities" as a development in progress; it was, 60 years ago, but i think it's well-established now (thinking that's it's new is probably just the Recency Illusion).  the singular version probably *is* more recent.

arnold

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