nouns like "company" and "staff"

Question

A dictionary has the following definition for "company":

people who are visiting you in your home

What if there is only one person visiting? Could "company" still be used?

Also, if a person owns a company and has only one employee, can he refer to the employee as his "staff"?

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 20 '23 at 15:28

4

Yes and yes.

If I have one friend at my house, and someone phones me, I'll say, "Sorry, can't talk. I've got company."

To your second question, "a company" simply means "a business". Whoever works for that company is the staff. You can have a staff of one.

It's ambiguous what "staff of one" means though. It can mean someone who has hired just one employee, or it can mean a person who works for themselves and has no employees -- they ironically refer to themselves as the single staff person.

answered Jun 20 '23 at 15:28

gotube

49,596
7
72
154

The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English has this definition for "staff": the people who work for an organization. Is this adequate, considering a person's staff can consist of only one person? – Apollyon Jun 20 '23 at 15:46
1

I worked alone from home for years as an independent contractor. Sometimes I'd describe my role within the company as Besides being the boss, I'm chief cook and bottle-washer AND TEA-BOY! – FumbleFingers Jun 20 '23 at 15:48
@Apollyon: It's a bit "whimsical", but consider I am* the staff at the present moment, which is one more than there was before.* Which presupposes that before the writer / speaker took the job, the company had a staff of *zero*. – FumbleFingers Jun 20 '23 at 15:54
@Apollyon Yes. No dictionary is so precise as to say "the person or* people...*". – gotube Jun 20 '23 at 22:56
@gotube I found that the Collins English Dictionary says "a social visitor or visitors; guest or guests" for "company" in the relevant sense. – Apollyon Jun 21 '23 at 00:53
1

@gotube Interestingly, there are dictionaries defining "staff" as "all the people ..." It seems that "all the people" denotes a set, which may consist of only one member, in mathematical parlance. – Apollyon Jun 21 '23 at 00:54
@Apollyon Nice find. I'm surprised they bothered. – gotube Jun 21 '23 at 05:11

nouns like "company" and "staff"

1 Answers1