Alien Collective

Even amid national crises, the London Times could not bear to leave the ramparts of the King's English unmanned. Last week the Times fired away at the word personnel, "this alien collective" from across the Channel. It doubted that "a more degrading, a more ill-favoured, synonym for two or more members of the human race has . . . been coined."

People to whom it is applied, said the Times, "do not go, they proceed. They do not have, they are (or, more often are not) in possession of. They do not ask, they make application for. . . . They cannot eat, they only consume; they perform ablutions; instead of homes they have places of residence in which, instead of living, they are domiciled. They are not cattle, they are not ciphers, they certainly are not human beings: they are personnel."

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