Poll: "He's probably spending a major fraction of his time trying to avoid getting caught." D. Rumsfeld

"He's probably spending a major fraction of his time trying to avoid getting caught." D. Rumsfeld

"A major fraction" is good English.
"A major fraction" is strange English.
"A major fraction" is bad English.
"A major fraction" is Donald Rumsfeld's idiolect.

Statistics Poll Stats

This Poll:

  • Votes: 402
  • Comments: 2
  • Added: December 2005

Comments:

fpberger

I was thinking this should be "the major fraction" based on thinking that the major fraction should be greater than half, but checking other usages, it seems common to use it to mean "one of the larger subsets of the whole" without necessarily being more than half. So I'd change my answer to "good English".

Kathy

I think the point is that Rumsfeld confused the word "fraction" with "portion". However, I don't think that's an uncommon mistake.

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