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oneofthesarahs
Joined: 05 Nov 2006
Location: Sacheon City
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 Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 5:02 am Post subject: A majority vs. a majority of people |
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This may be a dumb question, but bear with me.
The words "majority" or "minority" generally take on singular verbs.
-A minority is less than fifty percent.
-The majority is always right.
But what happens when you tack on "of people, etc." to the phrase? It's really just a prepositional phrase working as an adjective, but keeping the singular doesn't sound right.
A majority of people is voting for the bill.
A majority of politicians is corrupt.
It sounds wrong, but is it? One of the textbooks I was teaching out of said in the examples that "a majority of people" always takes on a third person singular verb. Yet in the exercises, the answer key used third person plural. What's going on here? |
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tob55
Joined: 29 Apr 2007
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| Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 2:14 pm Post subject: oversight... |
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| It is probably an oversight on the part of the authors...I have seen this happen a lot in some of the textbooks...I personally would use the plural form, UNLESS you add "the" as the article in front of people and politicians, then is is correct to use the singular form...You are right it does sound weird, but there are cases for it to work as you have said... |
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dogshed
Joined: 28 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 2:26 pm Post subject: Re: A majority vs. a majority of people |
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| oneofthesarahs wrote: |
This may be a dumb question, but bear with me.
The words "majority" or "minority" generally take on singular verbs.
-A minority is less than fifty percent.
-The majority is always right.
But what happens when you tack on "of people, etc." to the phrase? It's really just a prepositional phrase working as an adjective, but keeping the singular doesn't sound right.
A majority of people is voting for the bill.
A majority of politicians is corrupt.
It sounds wrong, but is it? One of the textbooks I was teaching out of said in the examples that "a majority of people" always takes on a third person singular verb. Yet in the exercises, the answer key used third person plural. What's going on here? |
On another thread someone had a fancy name for this, but I don't remember what it was. Something about "a majority of" acting like an adjective because it's about numbers. |
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jeffkim1972
Joined: 10 Jan 2007
Location: Mokpo
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| Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 5:16 pm Post subject: Re: A majority vs. a majority of people |
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| oneofthesarahs wrote: |
This may be a dumb question, but bear with me.
The words "majority" or "minority" generally take on singular verbs.
-A minority is less than fifty percent.
-The majority is always right.
But what happens when you tack on "of people, etc." to the phrase? It's really just a prepositional phrase working as an adjective, but keeping the singular doesn't sound right.
A majority of people is voting for the bill.
A majority of politicians is corrupt.
It sounds wrong, but is it? One of the textbooks I was teaching out of said in the examples that "a majority of people" always takes on a third person singular verb. Yet in the exercises, the answer key used third person plural. What's going on here? |
Again, similar to a previous post, but break the sentence down to it's basics.
A majority of people is voting for the bill.
A majority of politicians is corrupt.
People are voting. (already you know the right answer)
Politicians are corrupt. (already you know the right answer)
People are voting for the bill.
Politicians are corrupt.
A majority of people are voting for the bill.
A majority of politicians are corrupt.
or
A slew of people are voting for the bill.
A slew of politicians are corrupt.
A great deal of people are voting for the bill.
A handful of politicians are corrupt.
The "minority" and "majority" are the subject.
-A minority is less than fifty percent.
-The majority is always right.
In the other examples, they are just adjectives.
you can easily say
The red people are voting for the bill.
Fat politicians are corrupt.
Textbooks have many mistakes. Either in the form of typos, or just plain being wrong, etc.. |
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