- The police have arrested the killer.
What if you see a police (just one police) in a television who just arrested the killer. Do you still have to say “The police have arrested the killer” or “That police are awesome”?
- The police have arrested the killer.
What if you see a police (just one police) in a television who just arrested the killer. Do you still have to say “The police have arrested the killer” or “That police are awesome”?
“One police” is impossible under normal circumstances: “the police” is the organization as a whole, not a person. It would be very childish or informal, maybe slang.
If you want to speak of a “member” of the organization, you would say a “policeman” or “police officer” (or short “officer”).
When a criminal is arrested, you could say that the organization arrested him (“the police have arrested…”), or that a member of the organization arrested him (“a police officer has arrested…”). In practice there is little difference: if the organization arrests him, it must be a policeman who did the physical arrest; if a policeman arrests a criminal, he does it as a representative of the organization.
The regular way to say it is by “the police”; if there is something special about the policeman that did it, you would use officer/policeman.
Note that there are also other names for members of the police that do different jobs or hold different ranks, such as “detective” and “sergeant”.
I’ve been learning so much here in the forum! Thanks Cerberus!
Hi Cerberus™
you are really helpful…I do remember you, Kitos and Maliya help me to understand compound adjectives better.
Thank you…
You two are very kind, it is a pleasure to be of help. Oh, and it is “Milanya”.