Talk:jobsworths

This is not a real word

The term "jobsworth" is either singular only, uncountable, and never to my knowledge takes an additional s after the appositive for plural. Like several teaspoonsful versus one teaspoonful of something...

How much is some company or government department paying its office workers? One jobsworth or several jobsworth, maybe they don't all make the same hourly wage or salary, but the entire payroll is one "worth" added up, unless the workers are taking bribes or running a side gig in the office. Justinacolmena (talk) 20:49, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

If jobsworth were defined as "the amount of [something] contained in one job", by analogy to cupsworth or daysworth, then your point would make sense.

However, jobsworth is actually defined as "A minor official or worker who refuses to be flexible in the application of rules to help a client or customer". Therefore, it makes sense that you could talk about a group of such officials, i.e., jobsworths. Also, the last of the three quotations listed on that entry explicitly uses the plural form (click the link to the right of the definition line to expand).

Even more citations can be found on Google Books, e.g. "Institutionalisation (or at least, socialisation) creates jobsworths". 70.172.194.25 20:59, 20 December 2021 (UTC)