I have some doubts about which form, "the rich" or "the rich people", that I should use here:
- Some people think that the rich don't pay enough tax.
- Some people think that the rich people don't pay enough tax.
Which of the two sentences is acceptable English? And what part of speech is the word "rich" in both #1 and #2, adjective or noun?
Best Answer
In Sentence 1, the word rich functions as a mass noun. In Sentence 2, rich is an adjective modifying people.
To express it in a more natural way, you really should remove the word "the" from the second sentence:
When used as a mass noun, we use the word "the" in front of the word "rich." The same goes for poor:
but this article gets omitted with the word is used as an adjective modifying people:
Check out the Macmillan entry for rich for more on this: