salary X wage

[Lenka]

My salary is/wages are paid into my bank account every month.

"salary is" is the right one (not "wages are"). I just wonder what the difference between "salary" and "wage(s)" is. It appears to me to be the same...

Could you explain it and correct my English, please?

[Anglika]

wage

• noun (also wages) 1 a fixed regular payment for work, typically paid on a daily or weekly basis. 2 the result or effect of doing something wrong or unwise: the wages of sin.

salary

• noun (pl. salaries) a fixed regular payment made by an employer to an employee, especially a professional or white-collar worker.

— ORIGIN Latin salarium, originally denoting a Roman soldier’s allowance to buy salt, from sal ‘salt’.

In the UK a salary is interpreted as an annual sum, paid in monthly instalments.

[BobK]

... so it comes down to class. Both are regular payments for work. But wages are paid weekly, often in a brown envelope, and until 20/30 years ago paid in cash - to a manual worker. Professionals are paid a salary, paid monthly by bank transfer.

It's interesting that a salary is always singular, except in pay negotiations; a union might seek 'an increase in salaries'. Wages, on the other hand, are usually plural (even when referring to only one week's wages), except in pay negotiations; a union might complain that their workers don't get 'a living wage'. I have no idea why this should be, except that there is one salary per year, as opposed to 52 pay packets (for a wage-earner).

b

[msantos]

thanks for your answer

[Lenka]

Aha!! Now I understand! The reason why in the sentence My salary is/wages are paid into my bank account every month. only the first example is correct, is the fact that wages can't be paid monthly!
Thank you very much!