[General] disburse

[Silverobama]

Hi.

Are the following sentences idiomatic and grammatical? They're from my notebook but the original source is lost.

1) Company salaries are disbursed by the paymaster.
2) Policemen were disbursed throughout the city to hunt for the escaped criminal.
3) She can disburse.

I think 1) and 2) are okay, but "paymaster" might be old-fashioned while "disbursed" in sentence 1) might be replaced by "distributed". 2) is okay. I don't know what 3) means. According to its Chinese meaning of 3), it means "She is able to pay (for something)".

 

[tedmc]

3 is meaningless.
2 should have used deployed.

 

[Rover_KE]

1 is grammarical, but not used in everyday conversation.

 

[tedmc]

1 is grammarical, but not used in everyday conversation.

grammatical.

1 is saying the paymaster pays the company salaries. Who doesn't know that? It is like saying your teacher teaches you.

 

[SoothingDave]

Police might be dispersed through the city. Not "disbursed."

 

[GoesStation]

Most speakers will never use "disburse" in their entire lives, and there's a good chance they'll never see it. "Paymaster" is archaic in American English except possibly in some specific fields.

 

[PeterCW]

I have only ever heard "disbursements" use in a technical accounting context. In BrE "Paymaster" is a title used in specific government and military departments.

 

[GoesStation]

We have a letter in our possession from a US Army paymaster who was besieged with General Burnside at Knoxville, Tennessee in 1863, during the American Civil War. He found paying the soldiers very tedious. The title was used then. It may still exist in the US military, but modern methods of payment have probably made the position redundant.

 

[PeterCW]

We have a letter in our possession from a US Army paymaster who was besieged with General Burnside at Knoxville, Tennessee in 1863, during the American Civil War. He found paying the soldiers very tedious. The title was used then. It may still exist in the US military, but modern methods of payment have probably made the position redundant.

The British army seems to have dropped the title in 1992.

 

[tedmc]

Any employer or debtor is a paymaster. I have heard people say, Xxx is a bad paymaster, so people avoid working for him.

Disbursement is just a fanciful word for payment and disburse, for pay. It is favoured by accountants.

 

[GoesStation]

Any employer or debtor is a paymaster.

The word is rarely used in American English, and never for a debtor.