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Nowadays my country's authorities draft a new company law, in our current law incorporated companies can be established with more than 1 person, however the prospective law allows that incoroporated companies can be established even with a single person. I believe that this law does not fit the nature of the word "company", since I think the word company bears a meaning which implies more than one person, am I right?
A word means what it means. If you care to 'stop the clock' at 1553, then a company has to involve more than one person. Online Etymology DictionaryQuote:
Originally Posted by LwyrFirat
If you wind the clock back another thousand years to when French was being formed you will find that companio was borrowed because of the strength of the analogy with the Gothic ga hlaiba - which meant someone who shares bread (hlaib is related to the English 'loaf'). Online Etymology Dictionary. You're not suggesting that company directors should share bread?
But freezing meaning at some arbitrary spot on an etymological timeline isn't very useful. It seems to me that the new law you mention is not very literate, but the feelings of a few word-freaks like me won't change things. ;-)
b
PS By coincidence, I've just thought that company directors do share 'bread', in a common slang meaning of the word.
b
Thank you dear BobK for your very detailed answer and for your interest. Since I am not a native speaker of English I can't know the feeling when the word is heard by native speakers. For example the equivalent word of company in Turkish doesn't fit with single person at all. If there is a company with 1 person, and if they use that word for that organisation it would sound extremely strange to me as a native Turkish speaker. I wanted to learn how native English speakers feel for the company with a single person, since the mentioned amendment regarding the company law has been already made in the UK, I mean in the UK it's already allowed to establish a company with a single person (As far as I know).