system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: when "persons" is appropriate

I'm Dutch and have always learned that "persons" is not a word. The plural of "person" is "people". Yet I come across the word "persons" regularly. What's up with that?
gpt
"People" refers to a body of people, collectively. It generally implies that they have something in common or are in some way cohesive.

"Persons" means than one person, in the sense of several individuals.

> "The people of this country want justice!"

> "Persons on premises subject to search."

In the first case, you're wanting to refer to a group by their common nationality; in the second case, you're just wanting to say that any person found may be searched, even if more than one, not that you're going to collectively search a group (or even that one person you're searching is associated with another).