I often use the word people to mean multiple persons. However, I’ve noticed that sometimes people will laugh/smirk when I use it. For example, one time I was talking about how my sister and her family/household travel often, saying, “Those people travel a lot,” and the person repeated those people and gave a slight laugh. I’m wondering if I may be giving some sort of unintentional implied message when I use that word.
Does the word people mean anything other than multiple persons, such as a group of persons united by a common identity (family, experience, nationality, ethnicity, etc.)?
You’d get even weirder looks if you said “those persons travel a lot”, while also sounding like someone who doesn’t really speak the language.
“Those people” can be a racist or classist dog whistle, but isn’t always, and also there isn’t really an alternative. Say what you’re going to say, and don’t worry too much about it. The people who would misinterpret it to fit an agenda are probably going to do so regardless of what words you use.
The vast majority of the time ‘they’ or ‘them’ works in the same sentence as ‘those people’ when refering a goup since you already need context for who you are referring to. I can’t even think of an example where they or them doesn’t fit.
Description of a group of white people from Georgia.
I heard they like fried chicken.
I heard those people like fried chicken.
Hell, the second one sounds racist even after making it clear I was talking about white people, and I typed the words!