Despite being true, the sentence "Most people are Chinese." sounds weird when spoken out loud.
Edit: Guys, I get it. I made a linguistical error. You don't have to keep telling me.
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27 replies
“Most” would imply more than half which is not true of China or India.
“Most people are Asian,” would be true.
I really wish this went for more than two seasons
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I hadn't even noticed. That's fantastic
Nah, they're better off two'd.
Yup. Being the largest minority doesn’t automatically make you the majority.
Unless you’re working with funny electoral college numbers, in which case ~34% apparently equals >50%.
Get outta 'ere with that nunnber magic you commie!
Most doesn't mean or imply more than half, its the largest group, or greatest in quantity, biggest piece, etc.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/most
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/most
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/most
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/most
The definitions you link all include a meaning of “most” that is “a majority of”. Context matters.
“China has the most people.” Here it means the greatest quantity.
“Most people are Chinese.” Here it means a majority of people are Chinese.
That’s just how English works.
Also, India has the most people, not China.
I hope you were drunk and or high when you decided it would be a good idea to comment this
But in this case there is a larger group than the Chinese people, i.e. all the people that are not Chinese. If "most people are not Chinese" is true, then "most people are Chinese" cannot be true.
Me and my wife (both Caucasians) were expecting a baby. I called my brother with the news. His reply?
Brother: "Don't be surprised if the baby is Chinese."
Me: ...?
Brother: "Well, 25% of all babies are Chinese, bro"
I wish I had a brother specifically just to say shit like this to them
Brother never understood conditional probability.
He's gonna be an awesome uncle.
Um, no? Even assuming you mean Chinese ethnicity as opposed to residency, “most” implies majority, not plurality.
This thing that I totally made up, and is not true, sounds weird 🤔
It's not true.
What's the definition of "most?" 90%? 80%?
If one looks at it, PRC+ROC's population is only around 1.4 billion, which is only around 16.8%
If one adds in chinese diaspora, which is 60-70 million, that is still less than 18% of the world's population
I think the intented phrasing wanted to say out of all nationalities that would be probabilistically the most true if assuming for a truly random human on Earth, except even that's not true anymore, that would go to India.
The whole concept of a majority is a bit weird. So, let's say you have a bunch of groups that are about 0-1% of the total, but one group is 2%. That makes it the largest group, but it isn't really what people mean when they talk about majority. What if the largest group was 40% of the total, and all other groups are much smaller than that. Is that still a majority, even if it's still less than half of the whole? If it's over 50%, then it's pretty clear we're talking about a majority.
Same thing with minorities. What if the smallest group takes 20% of the whole pie? That's not an insignificant group, but it's still technically a minority since the other groups are larger than that.
You (Angry Rant by Mattias Pilhede)
I think most people are Indian now, which sounds fine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population
A plurality of people are Indian.
Sorry, I don't have internet in my shower, so I couldn't look up if it was still true. I think it was still China a decade or two ago.
Most means, yanno, MOST people. But most people are neither Chinese nor Indian.