- synecdoche uses the whole of "people" to describe a single person belonging to that subgroup of people defined by a preceding adjective, i.e. "he is good people." This is the first time I have ever seen someone refer to themselves as a certain type of "people." This may be a misinterpretation on my part, seeing as the subject is from Manila and I have implied a hyphenated "easy-to-go-with" as the adjective preceding the now-common usage of "people" for an individual. Otherwise, the sentence might lack a few more serious grammatical objects in pursuit of the meaning "I am easy to go with people." This seemed more of a grammatical stretch, and I gave our Asian speaker the benefit of the global doubt and assumed she was riding on this current trend.
people
analogy; noun
a person; one member of a particular subgroup of people
Etymology : synecdoche, "people" for "person"
Source : "I'm simple, flexible, easy to go with people." -online dating user profile; Philippines, 10/11
Last modified: 6 December 2011