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I've occasionally heard the phrase "faculty person" used, apparently as an alternative to "faculty member".

Are these exactly equivalent, or are there any subtle differences in meaning, connotation, or usage? Is there any reason to prefer one to the other in any particular setting?

Nate Eldredge
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    Seems unlikely that there is a difference. Note that the US, at one time, had a lot of local dialects. That mostly disappeared in the age of television, though. Still some remnants of it. Some months ago there was an online "test" that would predict where you were from by the words you described things with: "soda" vs "pop", for example. – Buffy Jan 02 '21 at 20:41
  • It's somewhat reminiscent of the shift to gender-neutral terms for professions, e.g. "fireman" -> "firefighter". I wondered if perhaps there was something similar here, that one was more inclusive than the other, in a way that I hadn't understood. – Nate Eldredge Jan 02 '21 at 21:55
  • It might be that "person" has become a favorite word lately. – Buffy Jan 02 '21 at 21:59
  • I've seen ambiguity of the term where sometimes "faculty" is implied to include only tenure-track professors (gathering other research and teaching folks among the "staff"), or perhaps tenure-track and professional track, and other cases where it applies to a broader group. However, I don't recall any place that this distinction rested on inclusion of some other word like "member" or "person". – Bryan Krause Jan 02 '21 at 22:01
  • The people I've heard it from were native English speakers and fairly senior. Searching on this site, for instance, I've seen paul garrett use "faculty person", and as far as I can tell, those both apply to him. – Nate Eldredge Jan 02 '21 at 22:05
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    Seems a sizable fraction of the occurrences of "person" here at academia.SE are from Paul: https://academia.stackexchange.com/search?q=%22faculty+person%22 whereas "member" is quite common https://academia.stackexchange.com/search?q=%22faculty+member%22 - guessing it's just an idiosyncratic synonym not intended to have different meaning. – Bryan Krause Jan 02 '21 at 22:14

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"Faculty member" is idiomatic. "Faculty person" is not. Otherwise there is no difference.

Anonymous Physicist
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