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

4k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

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

15

u/Bjd1207 Aug 12 '21

No that's called a plurality not a majority

8

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.

9

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%.

4

u/Its_Nitsua Aug 12 '21

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

5

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.

-1

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.