COMMONLY MISUSED ENGLISH WORDS & PHRASES, PART 3

NOTE: First published on November 11, 2020. The “Published” date on the tab is the date that it was uploaded on this new site.

(1) WORDS OF THE DAY: MOST & MAJORITY

(2) NBB INFOTAINMENT: “REGGAEMYLITES” BY PETER TOSH

This is “No Bullshiting,” by Harry Agina.

Greetings, folks!

I commonly hear people say something like, “Most of the people in the room…bla bla bla,” when they actually mean to say “Majority of the people in the room…bla bla bla.”

      Let’s say that we are talking about one hundred people in a classroom, and an election is going on in a contest between 2 candidates for the post of class prefect; a candidate that gets like 60 votes out of the 100 electors (voters) cannot be said to have most of the votes, nope; what the candidate has, is a majority of the votes. Anything higher than half (or 50 percent) of the hundred votes, is majority, but does not qualify as most of the votes. Even 60 to 90 percent of any number (100 votes in this case), does not qualify as MOST of the votes; not until it rises much closer to 100%.

     So, 51 to 90 out of hundred is still not most of the votes. If it does get as high as 90, then an adjective may be added to majority, such as, a great majority of the votes.

       To qualify as most, the elected candidate must have above 90% votes, closer to 100%.

        Now, if there are more than two candidates, like 3 (candidates ‘A’ ‘B’ and ‘C’) vying for the hundred votes, then another noun, “plurality,” kicks in. Let’s say that candidate ‘A’ gets 50 out of the 100 votes, candidate ‘B’ gets 30 votes, and candidate ‘C’ gets the remaining 20 votes. We say that candidate ‘A’ has plurality of the votes.

     And, if candidate ‘A’ gets any number above halF of the 100 votes, like 51% or more votes, then he/she is said to have both plurality, and majority of the votes.

     So, like I said, many of us, even PhD degree holders, do make this error of using the word most, when we actually mean to say majority. In fact, as I always say, many of my blogs are inspired by what I hear from people; and, this blog was inspired last night when I heard a PhD holder say most in a sentence, instead of majority.

Another commonly misused phrase of today is happy belated birthday, when the speaker actually means to say belated happy birthday wish.

     Sure, we may kind-of, also say “Happy Belated Birthday,” but only if the birthday person holds the birthday after the real date of his/her birthday anniversary, and not when you mean to say that you are LATE IN WISHING him/her a happy birthday.

        In fact, even if he/she held the anniversary celebration after the real date, it’s still not quite proper to say “happy belated birthday,” because the anniversary itself  never ever changes, anyway. Rather, we should say something like, “Happy belated birthday celebration wishes.“ In other words, the person’s birthday anniversary can never change, except he or she goes back into the mama’s womb and be born again. Otherwise, the birthday remains the same, and never late, from the moment that he/she was born, until the day he/she dies.

And now, time for the “Infotainment” slant of “No Bullshitting” Blog, and, here comes the music of the day, titled “Reggaemylitis.”

        Once upon a music day, many years ago, Peter Tosh woke up one morning with “a funny funny feeling.” Tosh said that the feeling was “a very unusual feeling.” He could feel it in his blood, in his bones, and everywhere else, even up to his brain. Naturally, the dude went to his doctor to find out the matter. And his doctor said that what he had was “Reggaemylitis.” It is the fever that comes with the love of reggae music. Tosh was one of the legends who made reggae music popular in the world, a founding member of “The Wailers” reggae group along with the most popular called Robert (Bob) Nesta Marley,

     Peter Tosh was born on October 19, 1944, in Grande Hill, Jamaica. Sadly, he was gunned to death too early in life on September 11, 1987, in Kingston, Jamaica.

I do understand Peter’s sickness in that song, because I actually have a serious case of it myself, meeeen!!!

As I mentioned last week in the introductory edition of my “Infotainment“ slant to “No Bullshitting” Blog, I do have oodles and oodles and oodles of reggae music in my library, and, here is Peter Tosh’s “Reggaemylitis.” Let’s see if the sickness will catch you, too; that’s if it hasn’t caught you yet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpsO7usXyL8

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