Can someone settle a grammatical argument?

[strange-steve]

I was talking to my sister earlier about eye colour and she said that "most people in Britain have blue eyes".

I said I doubt that, so we googled it and found that 50% of people in Britain have blue eyes.

So I said "ha, I'm right because for most people to have blue eyes it would have to be more than 50%."

She said "no actually I'm right because more people have blue eyes than any other colour. That means most have blue eyes."

I know this is a very pedantic and pointless argument but we were both adamant that we were correct.

So who is right?

 

[brisboy]

Your sister, sorry.

 

[strange-steve]

How can it be "most" though if the same number of people don't have blue eyes?

 

[stigman]

If 50%percent have blue eyes then the remaining 50% must have brown / green or whatever in between colours, so your sister is correct. But I do find that hard to believe cos most people I see don't have blue eyes.

 

[strange-steve]

If 50%percent have blue eyes then the remaining 50% must have brown / green or whatever in between colours, so your sister is correct.

Well that's exactly what she said, however my counter to that was that if 50% have blue eyes, that means 50% don't have blue eyes. So by her logic then I could say that most people don't have blue eyes, and both statements can't be true.

 

[Sadfield]

If 50%percent have blue eyes then the remaining 50% must have brown / green or whatever in between colours, so your sister is correct. But I do find that hard to believe cos most people I see don't have blue eyes.

Wrong. The arguement is that blue is more prevelent than all other colours combined. 50% is not greater than 50%.

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[strange-steve]

Wrong. The arguement is that blue is more prevelent than all other colours combined. 50% is not greater than 50%.

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That was exactly my point :clap:

 

[MyQul]

Steve's sister said most people have blue eyes. It was then googled and discovered 50% of people have blue eyes*. Steve's sister would only be correct if she had said more people have blue eye than any other colour as the combined other colour combinations also come to 50%. So her statement is incorrect as most means the greatest in amount


*this of course assumes that the google hit is correct

 

[Hoppyland]

Well, firstly, I do not believe the premise.
Do half the people you meet have blue eyes? I can't think of anyone I've met recently, let alone know, who does.

Anyway, back to the question.
As it's phrased: "most people in Britain have blue eyes" would have to mean that the majority have blue eyes. To be a majority would clearly mean over 50%.
The alternative question would be "what is the predominant eye colour". In which case 20, 30 or 40% could easily be the level that would get you over the line.
This isn't a veiled question about Brexit, proportional representation, maybe even the SNP and independence is it??

 

[strange-steve]

Well, firstly, I do not believe the premise.
Do half the people you meet have blue eyes? I can't think of anyone I've met recently, let alone know, who does.

Fwiw I don't believe the statistic is accurate either, from my experience it doesn't seem to be the case.

This isn't a veiled question about Brexit, proportional representation, maybe even the SNP and independence is it??

:lol: If only I were that clever.

 

[MyQul]

This isn't a veiled question about Brexit, proportional representation, maybe even the SNP and independence is it??

If it's a veiled reference to flouride in the water supply I'm closing the thread right now :lol:

 

[miker7301]

50% have blue eyes.
50% have a mix of brown, green, red.
So..
Blue 50%
Brown 30%
the rest 20%

Majority = blue.

The dictionary definition of most is a majority.

The majority in this case is blue eyes.

Most people in the UK have blue eyes, they hold the majority.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/most


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[strange-steve]

50% have blue eyes.
50% have a mix of brown, green, red.
So..
Blue 50%
Brown 30%
the rest 20%

Majority = blue.

The dictionary definition of most is a majority.

The majority in this case is blue eyes.

Most people in the UK have blue eyes, they hold the majority.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/most


Sent from my Samsung S6 please ignore any typos.

...and if you look up the dictionary definition of majority it says more than half, ie. greater than 50%.

 

[Hoppyland]

50% have blue eyes.
50% have a mix of brown, green, red.
So..
Blue 50%
Brown 30%
the rest 20%

Yep, so far so good. But.......

Majority = blue.

Well, this is where it goes wrong.
Taking your figures then blue = 50%
Yep, more people have blue than brown, or anything else.
But the (hypothetical) fact remains that 50% have blue eyes. The other 50% do not have blue eyes. So no majority - half the people have blue eyes. The other half do not have blue eyes. It would be equally false to say "most of the people have blue eyes" as to say "most of the people do not have blue eyes"

Jeez, it must be time for bed & wake up early for the cricket!

[/QUOTE]

 

[pvt_ak]

Sister [emoji23][emoji23]


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[IainM]

I was talking to my sister earlier about eye colour and she said that "most people in Britain have blue eyes".

I said I doubt that, so we googled it and found that 50% of people in Britain have blue eyes.

So I said "ha, I'm right because for most people to have blue eyes it would have to be more than 50%."

She said "no actually I'm right because more people have blue eyes than any other colour. That means most have blue eyes."

I know this is a very pedantic and pointless argument but we were both adamant that we were correct.

So who is right?

You are right Steve. You are using 'most' as a determiner, in which case it implies that the subsequent sentence refers to 'the majority', i.e. more than 50%, as there is only a binary choice (have blue eyes vs not have blue eyes). I think the confusion arises because 'most' can also be used as the superlative of an adjective, in which case it would be comparing three or more things by the extent to which the adjective applies to them, and specifying the largest (e.g. for the adjective 'common': the most common eye colour is blue).

 

[Chippy_Tea]

50% of all sisters are usually right :wink:

 

[stigman]

50% of all sisters are usually right :wink:

She's a woman and in her head they are right 100% of the time.

 

[Pfeffer]

MyQul is right, it´s not most but should be more. As 50% is still the biggest portion but 50% is still more, as the other 50% is made up of all other colours. With regards if the statistics are correct or not, grey eyes are classed as blue so I think it would be pretty realistic. It's the same for most of north western Europe.

So technically you are right, but if life learned me anything - it's to not argue with women. If you're right you're wrong. Just say she's right and back away slowly, avoid eye contact and try to stay out of the wind else she might sense fear.

 

[miker7301]

Jeez Louise..

A majority is the greater part, or more than half, of the total. It is a subset of a set consisting of more than half of the set's elements.

Look at the OR element people.

Greater part OR (that's OR!!!!) More thank half.

In this case 50% of people have blue eyes, the rest have other colours.



Sent from my Samsung S6 please ignore any typos.