Netherlands residents see value in the European Union for tackling problems that cross national borders, like climate change. The vast majority want to stay in the EU. But few feel like “Europeans,” and many don’t feel represented in European politics, according to a representative survey by Ipsos I&O for Binnelands Bestuur ahead of the European elections in June.
  • @talEnglish
    14•3 months ago

    a majority of PVV voters (45 percent) favor a Nexit.

    45% a majority?

    ponders

    Maybe this is “majority” being used to refer to the British English sense of “relative majority”, what we in the US call a “plurality”.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plurality_(voting)

    I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone – British or not – use a an unqualified “majority” to refer to a plurality, though. Even the Brits use “relative majority”.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majority

    A majority is different from a plurality (sometimes called a relative majority in British English), which is a subset larger than any other subset, but not necessarily greater than half the set.

    https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/majority

    More than half (50%) of some group.

    Cambridge is explicitly British English:

    https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/essential-british-english/majority

    more than half of a group of people or things

    Yeah, I don’t think that that’s a normal British form.

    • @Vincent@feddit.nlEnglish
      9•3 months ago

      The article is a somewhat kludgy translation of this one, I believe, which doesn’t use the word “majority”. But yes, it’s a plurality, the largest of the three groups (vs 39% remain, and the rest unsure).