[Ads-l] majority; plurality

[Mark Mandel]

You mentioned your "favorite lemma",  so I thought it not out of place to
point out the way it differs from the general use w.r.t. votes, etc.

Mark

On Apr 20, 2016 9:02 PM, "Laurence Horn" <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> > On Apr 20, 2016, at 8:52 PM, Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >
> > When there are only two candidates, or in this case two subgroups,
> > "majority" and "plurality" are synonymous.
>
> The difference would indeed be neutralized in such cases, but I thought
we were discussing the meaning and use of "majority" and "plurality", not
about how they apply to a particular case.
>
> LH
> >
> > On Apr 18, 2016 9:45 PM, "Laurence Horn" <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> >> ...
> >> 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.

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