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?
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.
... 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).
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Last edited by BobK; 08-Dec-2006 at 08:32. Reason: Fix typo
thanks for your answer
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!