Do vs does

D

Deleted member 13757

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Another one: people who do or people who does?

See: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/people#English

Originally a singular noun (e.g. The people is hungry, and weary, and thirsty, in the wilderness --2 Samuel 17:29, King James Version), the plural aspect of people is probably due to influence from Middle English lede, leed, a plural since Old English times (compare Old English lēode (people, men, persons), plural of Old English lēod (man, person)). See also lede, leod.
 

Glabrigausapes

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not sure if this is correct, whether you use seem or seems :D
Well, maybe not any more. But this must have been the case at some (rather embarrassing) time, and proof is in the pudding...
:bullshit:
Which is the kind of pudding I mean.

I am apolitical, & do not wish to give any impression but that I loathed the man as soon as I laid eyes on him. It's not a question of where he stands, I couldn't care less. Just look at him. One look is all it takes.
 

Pacifica

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I heard that Clinton got a little more votes than Trump by mere numbers, actually (but Trump won because of your complicated system whereby some states count more than others or something).
 

Issacus Divus

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I don't know. I saw this display of the numbers back in 2016, I think he got more?
 

Glabrigausapes

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but Trump won because of your complicated system whereby some states count more than others or something).
I don't even know, myself. It's all really quite ridiculous.
 

Pacifica

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According to Wiki:

Michael McDonald estimated that 138.8 million Americans cast a ballot.[394] 65.9 million of those ballots were counted for Clinton and just under 63 million for Trump, representing 20.3% (Clinton) and 19.4% (Trump) of a census estimate of U.S. population that day of 324 million.
 

Issacus Divus

H₃rḗǵs h₁n̥dʰéri diwsú

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Yeah. Some states count more, some people don't vote, Russia, and the rest. Too confusing to mess with.
 

Pacifica

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IIRC, each state has a certain number of "great electors" (I hope I remember the term right), depending on the size of the state. I'm not sure who those are or if they are even real individuals, but in any case they each have a vote and, while they can theoretically cast a different vote than what the majority of the people in the state have voted, in practice they pretty much always follow the majority. If the greater number of people in a certain state have voted for a certain candidate, all the "great electors" of that state will vote for that candidate. You see how this can lead to someone being elected while in fact having had fewer votes from the people in total.
 
 

Dantius

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I think they're just the electors, not great electors. The idea (well, the reason for keeping it) is to balance it so that the "little states" have a voice as well, because in the popular vote it could be that only politicians who work for the interests of the big coastal cities get chosen, because those have the majority of the population. The original idea was that the people would just vote for the electors and the electors would choose the president/VP, because the people themselves couldn't be trusted to make the right decision. Obviously that's no longer the thinking behind the system.
 

Pacifica

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IIRC, each state has a certain number of "great electors" (I hope I remember the term right), depending on the size of the state. I'm not sure who those are or if they are even real individuals, but in any case they each have a vote and, while they can theoretically cast a different vote than what the majority of the people in the state have voted, in practice they pretty much always follow the majority. If the greater number of people in a certain state have voted for a certain candidate, all the "great electors" of that state will vote for that candidate. You see how this can lead to someone being elected while in fact having had fewer votes from the people in total.
I mean, these "great electors" (or just "electors", apparently) vote after the people have voted, and it's the electors' vote that counts towards electing the President (though the electors usually follow the majority result of the people's vote in each state).

Just clarifying for those who may just be learning about this, as I realize it wasn't very clear in my first post.
 

Issacus Divus

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I only support Vermin Supreme.
 

Pacifica

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I learned about this back in 2016 when following the election, BTW. I think in French they said "les grands électeurs", literally "the great electors". If you just say "the electors" in English I guess "grands" was added in the French to differentiate them from the "électeurs" at large, i.e. the voters among the people.
 

Issacus Divus

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E

Etaoin Shrdlu

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It's occurred to me that when French (or other language) has a phrase that refers to 'the large/great X', more often than not the idiomatic English translation will not be 'the great X'. For example, apart from the equivalence of the American Great Plains with Les Grandes Plaines, I can't think of any examples, but that might be just my inadequate brain.

I have a communist-era dictionary whose English title is The Great Polish-English Dictionary. That should have been a warning as to its merits.
 

Pacifica

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But "le Grand Canyon" = "the Great Grand Canyon"
 

Issacus Divus

H₃rḗǵs h₁n̥dʰéri diwsú

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Les grandes grandes vacances — The long long holiday.
Btw, I didn't know that French has "Gizeh" for "Giza".
 

Pacifica

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Do you ever call WWI "the Great War"?
 
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