[Ads-l] majority; plurality

[Laurence Horn]

> On Apr 18, 2016, at 7:59 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> It seems to me that I'm hearing "majority" more and more to mean "a
> supermajority (of a vote)" and "plurality" to mean "more than half of it"
> i.e., a majority).  


Hmmm.  I haven't noticed that ("majority" reserved for 'a significant majority'), but in a way it makes sense, since "most" long ago gravitated to a super-majority ('significantly more than half') in ordinary usage, even though I'd argue that it literally means 'more than half' (just as "a majority" does).  And I think "plurality" has always been confusing to lots of people.  

Just checked to see if the 'super-majority' sense is in the OED--it's not (at least not without a clarifying adjective), although the loose use of "majority" to mean 'plurality' or 'significant proportion' is, (3a).  My favorite lemma is a use with which I was previously unfamiliar and which is evidently obsolete [apparently a calque of Lat. "ad plures"]: 

3c. "the majority": the dead. Chiefly in phrases "to join the majority" and "to go/pass over to the majority": to die. Obs.  

LH

> Sometimes "absolute majority" is used to mean
> "supermajority" while "plurality" retains its older meaning.
> 
> 
> JL
> 
> -- 
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
> 
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