"La majorité" versus "la plupart"

I came across this sentence: "La majorité de ce livre se déroule en France."

In English, even educated people might say "the majority of the book" but a careful speaker would say "most of the book." I'm wondering if it's the same in French. Here is the rule:

"The majority of" can only refer to a number of things or people. When talking about an amount, "most of" should be used: most of (not "the majority of") the harvest was saved

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on October 11, 2013 at 5:01pm

Hi Alan,

I think you may be working slightly from a false premise-- in English, people do also use "majority" to refer to amounts. It may be, though, that majorité is used a bit more in French with this usage.

Conversely, in French, plupart is almost only used with plurals. So in your example, it wouldn't really be an option. (On the other hand, you will find phrases such as la plupart du temps, la plupart de la population.)