I heard a speaker last night that mentioned "the vast majority" so often that I remarked to a friend, " I have a new cliche."
"What's that?"
On encountering a rare occurrence, you simply say, "That's as rare as an un-vast majority."
As I have written before, there are a lot of little nuances of the English language. I mentioned before that the word "unique" cannot use a modifier, despite that "most unique" does NOT qualify to be "as rare as an un-vast majority."
For some reason, "vast majority" sounds much better to speakers than "most". For some reason, majorities don't convey anything but 51% or more, so "vast" suggests something above... 75% maybe??
Well, the speaker was otherwise pretty good, so I guess I really have little about which to complain. Someone once pointed out that,
"A speech is a solemn responsibility. The man who makes a bad thirty-minute speech to two hundred people waste only a half hour of his own time.But he wastes one hundred hours of the audience's time - more than four days - which should be a hanging offense."
When I think about all the people who have to listen to me speak, I guess I shouldn't worry so much about anyone else's English, the vast majority of the time.
"What's that?"
On encountering a rare occurrence, you simply say, "That's as rare as an un-vast majority."
As I have written before, there are a lot of little nuances of the English language. I mentioned before that the word "unique" cannot use a modifier, despite that "most unique" does NOT qualify to be "as rare as an un-vast majority."
For some reason, "vast majority" sounds much better to speakers than "most". For some reason, majorities don't convey anything but 51% or more, so "vast" suggests something above... 75% maybe??
Well, the speaker was otherwise pretty good, so I guess I really have little about which to complain. Someone once pointed out that,
"A speech is a solemn responsibility. The man who makes a bad thirty-minute speech to two hundred people waste only a half hour of his own time.But he wastes one hundred hours of the audience's time - more than four days - which should be a hanging offense."
~ Jenkin Lloyd Jones
When I think about all the people who have to listen to me speak, I guess I shouldn't worry so much about anyone else's English, the vast majority of the time.
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