Personal vs personnel in budgets

[Elaine Ashton]

I've been noticing the use of 'personal' where I would expect the word 'personnel' since the former is singular and I'm not sure I'm qualified to vote on services of the personal kind. I'm guessing that there is a legal/accounting use that I'm unfamiliar with?

My apologies if this seems a silly question, but I'm curious and hopeful that I've approved personnel services and not potentially far more interesting personal services.

Elaine Ashton, Pct 1

[jonathan suber]

Hi Elaine,  I have found this reference to personal services  http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/personal+services Jonathan Suber Pct. 2 Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android From:"Elaine Ashton" <eas...@mac.com> Date:Mon, Mar 30, 2015 at 9:10 PM Subject:[LexTMMA] Personal vs personnel in budgets

I've been noticing the use of 'personal' where I would expect the word 'personnel' since the former is singular and I'm not sure I'm qualified to vote on services of the personal kind. I'm guessing that there is a legal/accounting use that I'm unfamiliar with? My apologies if this seems a silly question, but I'm curious and hopeful that I've approved personnel services and not potentially far more interesting personal services. Elaine Ashton, Pct 1

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[Glenn Parker]

Our budget nomenclature uses "Personal Services" instead of "Personnel Services".  After a while, it stops looking weird.

-Glenn Parker, Pct. 3

[Elaine Ashton]

> On Mar 30, 2015, at 11:04 PM, Glenn Parker <glenn....@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> Our budget nomenclature uses "Personal Services" instead of "Personnel Services". After a while, it stops looking weird.

The citation/definition that Mr. Suber gave a link to is for tortes and, it has a greater level of nuance that 'staff' or 'personnel' do not in addition to not being clear if it can be used in a plural sense which, I assume, town 'personal' are. I'm a bit intrigued as I'm an armchair linguist and occasional word hunter the professional pedants so I may just forward a few examples to the US OED head and see if he has seen 'personal' used in this context before. As for English looking weird, well, approach it as someone might from a phonetically spelled language and it's a whole new level of weird.

At least you didn't say that auto-correct was to blame. ;)

Elaine Ashton, Pct. 1

[andrei radulescu-banu]

Town Meeting may pass the budget, but the budget may not pass the grammarians.

My reading: personal is adjective in personal cost; personnel is noun, refers to the ones doing the personal service. Personal service = personnel service; personal != personnel.

Andrei

[Elaine Ashton]

> On Mar 30, 2015, at 11:34 PM, andrei radulescu-banu <bitdr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Town Meeting may pass the budget, but the budget may not pass the grammarians.
>
> My reading: personal is adjective in personal cost; personnel is noun, refers to the ones doing the personal service. Personal service = personnel service; personal != personnel.

If only English were so straightforward. :)

I'm no grammarian and I'm not trying to be tedious, but I am curious as this does seem to be a somewhat novel usage as, to me 'personal service' has a wholly different connotation than a collective noun. It's good to be precise, particularly in these sorts of things. As an aside, I did ask my foreign other half, who knows more languages than I do, what 'personal services' meant to him in terms of a budget spreadsheet and, well, let's just say it wasn't 'staff'. :) English is a wondrous thing and a source of constant entertainment.

Elaine Ashton, Pct. 1

[andrei radulescu-banu]

For what it's worth, Concord and Wellesley use 'personal services' in their budget, whereas Cambridge does not. Nothing against grammar on my part - it rescued me many times over, especially as I sat with the textbook practicing ye old language we're now speaking.

Andrei