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#2 (permalink) Wed Oct 14, 2009 19:46 pm Police = plural always? |
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"One police" is impossible under normal circumstances: "the police" is the organization as a whole, not a person. It would be very childish or informal, maybe slang.
If you want to speak of a "member" of the organization, you would say a "policeman" or "police officer" (or short "officer").
When a criminal is arrested, you could say that the organization arrested him ("the police have arrested..."), or that a member of the organization arrested him ("a police officer has arrested..."). In practice there is little difference: if the organization arrests him, it must be a policeman who did the physical arrest; if a policeman arrests a criminal, he does it as a representative of the organization.
The regular way to say it is by "the police"; if there is something special about the policeman that did it, you would use officer/policeman.
Note that there are also other names for members of the police that do different jobs or hold different ranks, such as "detective" and "sergeant". |
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Cerberus™ I'm a Communicator ;-)

Joined: 11 Feb 2009 Posts: 1342
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#3 (permalink) Thu Oct 15, 2009 2:08 am Police = plural always? |
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I've been learning so much here in the forum! Thanks Cerberus! :D _________________ I quit studying English years ago and have just come back to study the basics. |
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Aikuzo I'm here quite often ;-)

Joined: 23 Jul 2009 Posts: 197 Location: Houston, Texas
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#4 (permalink) Thu Oct 15, 2009 2:23 am Police = plural always? |
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Hi Cerberus™ you are really helpful...I do remember you, Kitos and Maliya help me to understand compound adjectives better. Thank you... _________________ Global Marketing |
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Richard I'm a Communicator ;-)

Joined: 01 Sep 2009 Posts: 1319 Location: Malaysia (at present)
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#5 (permalink) Thu Oct 15, 2009 3:16 am Police = plural always? |
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| You two are very kind, it is a pleasure to be of help. Oh, and it is "Milanya". |
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Cerberus™ I'm a Communicator ;-)

Joined: 11 Feb 2009 Posts: 1342
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