2023-07-03 ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด M - Majority & plurality & minority
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Dictionary.com
ออกเสียง Majority = ‘muh-JAWR-i-tee’
ออกเสียง plurality = ‘ploo-RAL-i-tee’
ออกเสียง Minority = ‘mahy-NAWR-i-tee’
NECTEC’s Lexitron-2 Dictionary
ให้คำแปล Majority = N. ส่่วนใหญ่/เสียงข้างมาก
ให้คำแปลplurality = N. ความเป็นพหูพจน์
ให้คำแปลMinority = N. คนกลุ่มน้อย/ความเป็นผู้เยาว์
Dictionary of Problem Words and Expression
Majority & plurality & minority
One meaning of majority is “more than half.”
Plurality means “the highest number within a given number,”
“the excess votes received by the leader over the next candidate when three or more are competing.”
If Joe got eighty votes, Jack sixty, and Bill forty,
Joe would have the plurality of twenty
but not a majority because
he received fewer than half the votes cast.
Majority is often used as a loose substitute for many.
In this context,
minority means a number, amount, or part forming less
than half of the whole.
Minority also applies to a group
differing in ethnic background, race, or religion
from the majority of the population.
“The Democrats form the majority party in this country.”
“To win this election,
you will need a plurality of the votes, not necessarily a majority.”
In this state, Chinese-Americans are a minority group.”
Dictionary.com
SYNONYM STUDY FOR MAJORITY
Majority, plurality,
in the context of an election, poll, or other voting situation
resulting in a statistically based statement,
both denote an amount or number larger than some other.
In situations in which
only two candidates, options, or positions are concerned,
the terms are interchangeable,
though majority is by far the more commonly used:
She beat her opponent by a large majority.
The proposal received a large plurality of “Yes” votes.
When three or more choices are available,
however, a distinction is made between majority and plurality.
A majority,
then, consists of more than one-half of all the votes cast,
while
a plurality is merely the number of votes one candidate receives
in excess of the votes for the candidate with the next largest number.
Thus, in an election in which three candidates
receive respectively 500, 300, and 200 votes,
the first candidate has a plurality of 200 votes,
but not a majority of all the votes cast.
If the three candidates
receive 600, 300, and 100 votes,
the first has a majority of 100 votes
(that is 100 votes more than one-half the total of 1000 cast)
and a plurality of 300 votes over the nearest opponent.
Dictionary.com
“Majority” vs. “Plurality”:
What Their Differences Mean For This Election
During the US presidential election,
the votes aren’t always split between two candidates:
independent party candidates appear on the ballot as well.
Presidential candidate Gary Johnson, a Libertarian,
won 4.5 million votes in 2016, for example.
But what would it actually take for one of these candidates
to be elected as the next president of the United States?
Does a presidential candidate simply
need the plurality of the votes to win
or does the candidate need a majority
of all of the votes cast in order to win?
What does majority mean?
Majority is a noun that in general means
“the greater part or number;
the number larger than half the total.”
However, in terms of voting and elections,
majority is defined as
“a number of voters or votes,
jurors, or others in agreement,
constituting more than half of the total number.”
It also refers to the party or group with the majority vote.
For example:
Eleanor was thrilled to win the majority of votes for class president and couldn’t believe 76% of students supported her.
In order to win the majority,
the number of votes needs to be more than half or 50%.
Majority originates from the Medieval Latin word majōritās
and dates back to 1545–55.
What does plurality mean?
Plurality is a noun that,
like majority, can mean more than half of the whole.
However when it comes to voting,
plurality refers to
“the excess of votes received by the leading candidate,
in an election in which there are three or more candidates,
over those received by the next candidate.”
This means that someone who wins the plurality of votes
received more than any of the other candidates
but not necessarily the majority.
For example,
Gabriel won the plurality for school vice president
with 40 percent of votes while Kiara came in with 35 percent
and Carl with 25 percent.
If Gabriel had received 54%,
he would have received both the majority and plurality.
Starting to see the difference?
Plurality‘s fist recorded use dates back to 1325–75.
It originated from the Middle English pluralite via French
and the Latin term plūrālitās.
COLLINS ENGLISH DICTIONARY
USAGE FOR MAJORITY
The majority of can only refer to a number of things or people.
When talking about an amount, most of should be used:
most of (not the majority of) the harvest was saved
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Usage Notes
Can 'Majority' and 'Minority' Be Used with Noncount Nouns?
It's not as simple as you may think.
When we hear the word majority
it’s often in the context of a sampling, such as a poll.
You count the members of a group and
if more than half share the same characteristic,
then you can say the majority of the group share that characteristic.
Noncount nouns, also called mass nouns,
often refer to things that exist as a mass,
already connote a plural, or exist only in the abstract.
It works the same with surveys.
‘'You ask a group of people a question,
and if more than half of that group gives the same answer,
then you can say the majority of that group are in agreement.
(All of the same is true for its converse, minority:
a minority of employees, a minority of residents.)
These examples are relatively straightforward
in that the noun being sampled is a countable plural.
A count noun is one that can be expressed in units:
100 senators, nine justices, fourteen sandbags,
a hundred million voters, two dozen doughnuts.
It's easy to pair near any count noun with majority or minority
and have a clear idea what is being represented.
At least fifty-one of 100 senators
constitute a majority of those senators.
So do five of nine justices.
If thirteen or more of the two dozen doughnuts contain jelly,
you can say that a majority of the doughnuts have jelly in them.
But a question arises
when one attempts to use these words with a noun
that is not countable because it is
either a singular noun or non count noun.
Noncount nouns, also called mass nouns,
do not get counted in units
the same way that we count senators and doughnuts and sandbags.
Noncount often refers to things that exist
as a mass (mayonnaise, sand, garbage),
that already connote a plural (applause, furniture),
or that exist only in the abstract (petulance, smoothness, adoration).
You wouldn't say you have four garbages or a hundred furnitures,
so these nouns are considered noncount.
Traditionally,
usage experts have insisted that majority (like minority)
only works with count nouns.
But we find the word used for all kinds of things
being apportioned but that can’t exist as discrete units:
As these examples demonstrate,
majority is used for all kinds of things
that are not by nature countable,
but that can be apportioned in their own way.
It can be used with space, or things measured by area:
It can be used with time, or things measured by time:
In some cases, the sentence requires a careful read.
What might seem like a noncount noun could really,
in context, imply something countable.
In phrases like “the majority of the community”
or “the majority of the team,”
the words community and team really stand for
the individuals that make up those groups.
“A majority of the album”
might apportion a recording by its individual tracks.
Talent here is being expressed as a noncount noun
(though one can also say “she has many talents”
in a different sense of the word).
In this case, the word is being used as a metonym
to stand for “people who are talented”;
the sentence is saying that the majority of the players
at those skill positions are returning, and players are countable.
The question then arises:
do majority and minority take a singular or plural verb?
The answer is most often determined, again,
by the countability of the noun being apportioned:
A majority of the voters are in favor of the law.
The majority of the wine is from Argentina.
A majority of the songs feature her on guitar.
A majority of my day is devoted to keeping records.
A majority of my work hours are devoted to keeping records.
A majority of the workforce is categorized as blue-collar.
This has been the majority of our current research on the matter.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language,
Usage Note:
When majority refers to a particular number of votes,
it takes a singular verb:
Her majority was five votes.
His majority has been growing by 5 percent every year.
When it refers to a group of persons
or things that are in the majority,
it may take either a singular or plural verb,
depending on whether the group
is considered as a whole
or as a set of people considered individually.
So we say
The majority elects (not elect) the candidate it wants (not they want),
since the election is accomplished by the group as a whole;
but The majority of the voters live (not lives) in the city,
since living in the city is something that each voter does individually.
Majority is often preceded by great (but not by greater)
in expressing emphatically the sense of "most of":
The great majority approved.
The phrase greater majority is appropriate
only when considering two majorities:
He won by a greater majority in this election than in the last.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language,
Usage Note:
Socially speaking,
a minority is an ethnic, racial, religious, or other group
having a distinctive presence within a larger society.
Some people object to this term as negative or dismissive,
and it should be avoided in contexts where a group's status
with regard to the majority population is irrelevant.
Thus we would normally say
a poem celebrating the diversity of cultures (not minorities)
in America, where the emphasis is cultural
as opposed to statistical or political.
But in the appropriate context, as when discussing a group
from a social or demographic point of view,
minority is a useful term that need not be avoided as offensive.
A different problem arises
when minority is used to refer to an individual
rather than a group, as in the sentence
As a minority, I am particularly sensitive
to the need for fair hiring practices.
In our 2011 survey, 58 percent of the Usage Panel
found this example unacceptable.
However, when the word was used in the plural
without a numeral or a quantifier like many or some
—as in
The firm announced plans to hire more minorities and women
—the Panelists were more approving, with only 25 percent
judging an example such as this one unacceptable
The discrepancy in these opinions can be explained
by the fact that in this type of plural usage,
the word is understood as referring to the members of a group
taken collectively rather than as individuals.
Collins COBUILD English Usage
majority
1. 'majority'
If something is true of
the majority of the people or things in a group,
it is true of more than half of them.
The majority of students in the class will go on to study at college.
In the majority of cases, the illness can be treated successfully.
When the majority is not followed by 'of',
you can use either a singular or plural form of a verb after it.
The majority is still undecided about which way to vote.
The majority were in favour of the proposal.
However, when you use the majority of
followed by a plural noun or pronoun,
you must use a plural form of a verb after it.
The majority of cars on the road have only one person in them.
2. 'most of'
Don't use 'the majority' when you are talking about
an amount of something or part of something.
Don't say, for example, 'The majority of the forest has been cut down'.
Say 'Most of the forest has been cut down'.
Most of the food was good.
Katya did most of the work.
Collins COBUILD English Usage
minority
If something is true of a minority of the people or things in a group,
it is true of less than half of the whole group.
Only a minority of cable and satellite viewers
are shocked by what they see on television.
You can talk about a small minority (for example 8%)
or a large minority (for example 40%).
Only a small minority of children get a chance to benefit
from the system.
The incomes of a large minority of tenants are inadequate
to enable them to pay their rents.
When a minority is not followed by 'of',
you can use either a plural or singular form of a verb after it.
The plural form is more common.
Only a minority were active in pursuing their beliefs.
When you use a minority of followed by a plural noun,
you must use a plural form of a verb after it.
Only a minority of people ever become
actively engaged on any issue.
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