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

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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.