According to linguists most of what we say is expressed with only three thousand words.
I wonder why the sentence is not “According to linguists the most of what we say …”.
Thanks for your help. Greetings.
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Most is the majority of something. There is no direct comparison.
This always means more than half.
The most is a direct comparison meaning “more than any other”.
This can be a majority, but can also be a plurality.
The results of this year’s election :
Party A got 40%
Party B got 35%
Party C got 25%
Party A got the most votes. Since it did not get the majority you can not say, “Party A got most votes.”
Most votes is not a direct comparison and does not reference any other party. It vaguely states that the party got the majority of votes.
Change the election results :
Party A got 60%
Party B got 35%
Party C got 5%
In this case, Part A got most votes. It also got the most votes. So there are cases where either one will work.
In your original sentence, you can not use the most because there is no direct comparison to anything. It simply means the majority.
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Excellent explanation.
Thanks a lot.
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