The majority of plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is discarded fishing gear.

r/pics • u/lnfinity • Aug 12 '21

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u/_Apatosaurus_ Aug 12 '21 edited Aug 12 '21

46%

That is the majority

Please explain

Edit: Majority almost always refers to an absolute majority of >50%. If OP means a plurality or relative majority, they should specify that. Not doing so is intentionally misleading.

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u/Smittywerbenjagerman Aug 12 '21

Things can be majority with less than 50% of the total if there are more than 2 categories.

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u/Bjd1207 Aug 12 '21

No that's called a plurality not a majority

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u/Its_Nitsua Aug 12 '21 edited Aug 12 '21

If you have 6 apples 3 bananas and 4 oranges, you have a majority of apples.

Majority literally means ‘the greater number’.

Edit: yes there are multiple definitions, but with the magic of context we can clearly see OP was using the one I’m referencing.

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u/RogueFighter Aug 12 '21

No, that's a plurality. Majority does specifically mean >50%

The stat above only counts fishing nets, if you included non-net fishing gear it does push the number over 50%.

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u/Its_Nitsua Aug 12 '21

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/majority

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u/RogueFighter Aug 12 '21

Congratulations, but instead googling the minimum to confirm your side, maybe Google "majority vs plurality" and get back to me.

Majority has multiple definitions, a simple, inexact definition in common English, and a more exact definition in poli-sci, math, and engineering.

Of course, all of this is an irrelevant aside since as op clarified, fishing equipment constitutes over 50% of the trash, making it the majority by any definition.

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u/Its_Nitsua Aug 13 '21

Its also irrelevant because using context clues you can easily see OP meant majority in the sense of the largest number of the group.

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u/FaceRockerMD Aug 12 '21

This is a semantics argument but I love how confidently incorrect you are.

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u/Its_Nitsua Aug 12 '21

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/majority

Semantics my ass

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u/unpolloloco2 Aug 12 '21

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/majority

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u/FaceRockerMD Aug 12 '21

Aww you beat me to it lol. He's gonna dig his heels in and keep using it wrong. Such is life.

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u/Its_Nitsua Aug 12 '21

Bruh how am I wrong?

There are clearly multiple definitions, using context clues you can obviously see the OP above was using the one I’m referencing.

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u/thisissaliva Aug 13 '21

The context of the title? There isn’t much of it, what exactly implies that they meant plurality?

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u/Bjd1207 Aug 12 '21

MW lists a few definitions, the first of which is "percentage equaling more than half of a total." It does give your definition as well https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/majority

Wikipedia specifically separates the two understandings, with majority (and more specifically simple majority) meaning a subset with more than half of the sets elements. The subset of apples is not more than half of the set.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/majority

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u/Its_Nitsua Aug 12 '21

Exactly though, this dude is getting hounded on because he used majority ‘wrong’ when in-fact he used it perfectly.

They chose to take their own definition, when its quite clear by the context he meant the larger of a group of numbers that make a whole.

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u/pelops Aug 12 '21

That definition doesn't work though because I could just as easily say from your example that a majority of fruits are not apples and I would be just as correct because the sum of oranges and bananas is the greater number compared to apples.

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u/Xerxes42424242 Aug 13 '21

No… that’s a plurality. As stated several times before.