Bull's Eye Business Writing TipsTip #420: Majority or plurality:These FREE
weekly business writing tips
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Tip #420: Majority or plurality: A “majority” means “more than half the total.” A “plurality” means “more than the next highest number (but more than half).” Examples:
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Weekly Exercise:
We receive over 200 emails per day. We encourage you to answer our weekly tips, but please, if you are answering this weekly tip exercise, identify the tip number in the subject line of your email.
This week’s quiz:
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Richard Pappa asked this question. Do you know the answer? Would you please tell me the difference in usage between "may" and "might." Perhaps you can cover this in a future Weekly Tip? In sentences such as "I heard Tom may [or might] be selected for the job." |
Comments from our readers:
Comments regarding the comments "Frances" made about the subject line:
Fox Cole commented:
Please don't touch what's inside the brackets. That is a standard filter field for many e-mail clients and newsreaders, and changing that would cause far more problems than it solves. I do have a suggestion for an alternative, though. Another list I subscribe to uses tags in capital letters (caps are easy to distinguish visually) at the beginning of the regular subject line, followed by a colon and the subject header, to identify the type of topic or question. Readers could use the tags to filter out subjects they're not interested in, or to sort subjects into folders, like "Frances wants to do". For this to work, the tags must be specifically defined and standardized for the whole list.
To apply that format to a Weekly Writing Tips example, a subject line might
look like this: [writing-tips] PUNCTUATION: Weekly Business Writing Tips #999.
Another category might be GRAMMAR, or USAGE... But, finding the right categories that everyone would understand and agree on might be a bit of a challenge. Not everyone has the same mental model of the definition of usage, for example, and often the lines between categories or topic types blur, so tagging the subject might become a best-guess effort. Another obvious problem with adding tags to each subject is that the list of tags as specific as "openings" and "transitions" might quickly become unwieldy, and for all practical purposes would be useless to the majority of readers. Tags would need to be general enough to cover a variety of topics, but specific enough to accurately help readers find and sort the information. That's quite a tall order, and quite a bit of work especially when the end users might all have different ideas of what the tags should be and what they mean. So---it's not as simple an undertaking as might appear on the surface. In any event, the bracketed text should be left alone.
Patti. N. Curry commented: I agree with Frances: putting the subject of the tip, rather than the tip number, in the e-mail subject line would be helpful. Thanks for all of your great tips. Keep up the good work!
Sandy commented: I like the example "What would you think of "Writing Tip #418 - The use of "said" as a title?" I also save the tips and this would certainly be an easier method when trying to locate a specific topic.
Roger Groce commented about Tip $419:Re: 1. My son doesn't feel very well today.
I'm puzzled. My English teacher used to say "well" in cases like this could
just as easily refer to the act of touching. Therefore "good" is
preferable. Please straighten me out. (Again)
My comment to Roger: “Good” is an adjective, and “well” is typically used as an adverb but may be used as an adjective to refer to the state of someone’s health.
Examples: Sally got good grades in school. (adjective) I will do the job as well as I can.( Adverb) “To feel well means “to be in good health.” To feel good means “to be in good spirits.”
Richard Cochrane commented on Tip #419: We are taught as children to "use "a" before words starting in a consonant, and "an" before words starting with a vowel, but I think that 5 of the 6 rules could be simply summarized by replacing the rule with the following rule instead: If the word/abbreviation starts with a vowel sound, use "an"; if it starts with a consonant sound, use "a". It holds true for almost all cases, as seen in the following examples before words starting with consonants:
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I received an SMS yesterday
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That was an hour ago
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Playing Scrabble, an M is worth 4 points
The one exception (that I know of) is that of placing "an" before
h-words. I don't know the logic behind it, and it sounds awkward, but I
guess that's English. This way, though, I think we have an all-encompassing rule (with one exception) rather than 6 smaller rules. Is this helpful?
What do you think, readers?
Quote of the week:
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“Rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength.” (Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) |
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My answer to Richard Pappa’s question: “May” and “might” imply permission or possibility. For example: “You may send them a dozen cans of paint.” (permission) “The report might be true.” (possibility) In your sentence, I would use “might” since it is a possibility. |
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To send the above exercise answers to Gloria for her comments and review, copy the questions, paste them into an email, answer them, and send to Marsha@basic-learning.com.
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These business writing tips brought to you by:
Bull's Eye Business Writing
10 Easy Guides for Getting to Your Writing Target
By Gloria Pincu, M.A. , President of Basic Learning Systems, Inc.
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