people

   ‘On the stage, people. Come along.’ Thus speaks a character in Mariana, by Monica Dickens. At first glance ‘people’ here appears to be a neutral word, a simile for everyone, but it hints at inclusion in a special group, rather as when a public schoolboy talks of ‘his people’ - the members of his family attending an open day.

   There is the same underlying sense of membership of a community in ‘good people’, used to address those assembled at a religious or political meeting, though this now has an old-fashioned ring to it. While being less neutral than it seems, ‘people’ manages to avoid the vaguely suspicious friendliness of ‘you good folk’. or ‘folks’. ‘You people’ occurs vocatively; in The Watch that Ends the Night, by Hugh MacLennan, it becomes more specific as ‘you Montreal people’. This is a different type of vocative, however. See also You + category of person.