People Versus Persons

Nowadays, people is almost always the right choice when you are talking about more than one person. Some dictionaries don't even include persons as the plural of person anymore, and the few dictionaries that do include persons note that it is uncommon, archaic, or going out of style. Traditionally, people was proper when referring to a mass of people (e.g., Squiggly couldn't believe how many people were at the wrestling match), andpersons was proper when referring to a distinct number of individuals (e.g., Squiggly noted that eight persons showed up for the book club meeting).