“An Assam Rifles personnel was arrested on Wednesday…” (letter)

by MUKUL DUBE

At page 9, column 1 of the “Hindu” of 11 July 2013, we find this: “An Assam Rifles personnel was arrested on Wednesday…”. What is *a* personnel, please? How can you have a single personnel when the word is a plural noun? This is, in reverse, much like speaking of “aircrafts”.

But the newspaper is in excellent company. The advertisements of the Delhi Police routinely describe the complexions of missing people and of corpses as “shallow”. I do not know if they have so far come across an individual with a *deep* complexion. Nor do I know if newspapers re-employ disgraced sub-inspectors.

Mukul Dube can be reached at dube.mukul@gmail.com