What's the difference between placeman and placemen?
Placeman
Definition:
(n.) One who holds or occupies a place; one who has office under government.
Example Sentences:
(1) Moscow's placeman Najibullah lasted three years after the last Russian troops left before he made his fatal error of rejecting safe passage outside the capital, wrongly assuming he would be safe from the Taliban.
(2) America's placeman, Hamid Karzai, does not look likely to last that long.
(3) First came liberation from the British; now comes liberation from the west's placeman, and indeed from the limiting western views of what is possible in Arab society.
(4) Labour members are expected to press him on his business ties and political links, and in particular will ask about his relationship to David Cameron amid concerns that Patten will be a political placeman at the top of the corporation.
(5) Could Boris already be seeking a placeman to run in his stead as London mayor in 2016?
Placemen
Definition:
(pl. ) of Placeman
Example Sentences:
(1) Ukraine's real political split has always been between different industrial clans, whose placemen dominate parliament.
(2) If the peerage is suddenly opened up to placemen, who hope for later preferment in elective politics, then we could soon have more legislators who are not only unelected, but also the opposite of independent.
(3) Should the present model persist in its new location, a supposedly UK-wide, double-chamber job with its West Lothian question unaddressed and its upper house stuffed with unelected party placemen?
(4) For the tiny minority who follow Westminster as a spectator sport, the wearying sound of party placemen mouthing "lines to take" might seem the greatest failing.
(5) This is fine in the pages of a polemical novel, and an excellent thing for democracy in a parliament that often appears full of placemen.
(6) The deep state can be the government itself, disposing of its opponents by illicit or unfair means, packing ministries with its placemen, interfering in military promotions or using criminal investigations to tarnish its critics, to give just a few examples.
(7) Equally, half our parliament consists of unelected placemen and women in the House of Lords; including bishops who represent only an ever-dwindling membership of the Church of England for which disestablishment is long overdue.
(8) The ex-servicemen, rabid anti-communists and Tory placemen of yesteryear have gone.
(9) The main board of Newco will still have News Corporation 'placemen' on it, able to exert significant influence over Sky News.