Personal vs personnel
Personal is an adjective that means about or belonging to one person. Personnel is a noun for the people who work for an organization.
PersonNEL puts its stress on the end, on nel. PERsonal puts it at the start.
personal adjective
Belonging to or about one particular person, not other people.
- This is my personal opinion, not the company's view.
- She keeps her personal letters in a locked box.
personnel noun
The people who work for a company, group, or military unit.
- Only hospital personnel may enter this room.
- The company hired new personnel for its warehouse.
Watch out
- Personnel can also mean the department that hires workers and keeps staff records.Complaints about workplace safety should be reported to personnel.
- Personnel means staff as a group. With numbers, as in three personnel, it is common in news and military writing, though some usage guides object. For one person, say a staff member. A personnel file is fine.
Test yourself
Only authorized blank may enter the lab.
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personnel. This means the staff, the people who work there, so use personnel.
I'd rather not talk about my blank life.
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personal. It describes one person's private life, so use the adjective personal.
The army sent more blank to the border.
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personnel. These are the people in a military unit, so use personnel.
She wrote him a blank note to say thank you.
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personal. She wrote the note herself, just for him. That makes it personal. Personnel means staff.
Full entries: personalpersonnel