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Police = plural always?



 
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ESL Forum | English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
had noticed vs. noticed (conditional) | "Future time" rule on present simple tense?
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Police = plural always? #1 (permalink) Wed Oct 14, 2009 18:31 pm   Police = plural always?
 

- The police have arrested the killer.

What if you see a police (just one police) in a television who just arrested the killer. Do you still have to say "The police have arrested the killer" or "That police are awesome"?
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Aikuzo
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Police = plural always? #2 (permalink) Wed Oct 14, 2009 19:46 pm   Police = plural always?
 

"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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Police = plural always? #3 (permalink) Thu Oct 15, 2009 2:08 am   Police = plural always?
 

I've been learning so much here in the forum! Thanks Cerberus! :D
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Aikuzo
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Police = plural always? #4 (permalink) Thu Oct 15, 2009 2:23 am   Police = plural always?
 

Hi Cerberus™
you are really helpful...I do remember you, Kitos and Maliya help me to understand compound adjectives better.
Thank you...
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Police = plural always? #5 (permalink) Thu Oct 15, 2009 3:16 am   Police = plural always?
 

You two are very kind, it is a pleasure to be of help. Oh, and it is "Milanya".
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had noticed vs. noticed (conditional) | "Future time" rule on present simple tense?
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