[Ads-l] majority; plurality

[Baker, John]

Do you have examples?  I've only seen "majority" to mean "more than half of the votes cast," "plurality" to mean "more votes than received by any other candidate or proposition," and "absolute majority" to mean "more than half of all voters, including voters who did not vote."   (Apparently "absolute majority" is sometimes used to mean just "majority," but Black's Law Dictionary gives it only the meaning I cite.)  It's true that people sometimes say things like "two-thirds majority" when they mean "two-thirds supermajority," but that's pretty transparent.  But perhaps I spend too much time hanging around lawyers, who tend to be precise on issues like this.


John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Jonathan Lighter
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2016 8:00 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: majority; plurality

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).  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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