# more common,  more often, more frequent



## vikky7695

When we read an article on the internet saying that some Event X takes place more frequently than you think.What is in the mind of the author who writes this article?Does the usage of more frequently implies that 1.)the author thinks that readers of his article already think that the event takes place at a lower frequency level OR 2.)the author thinks that his audience might think that event never takes place ,OR both scenarios 1and 2?? Similarily,can anyone tell what exactly the usage of more common and more often implies in day to day English conversations??


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## owlman5

vikky7695 said:


> OR both scenarios 1and 2??


Both interpretations are possible, vikky7695. By itself, _X happens more often than you think it does _really doesn't tell us anything solid about other people's estimates of probability. I generally _assume_ that people imagine that others believe _X _occurs occasionally.

If you assume that somebody else believes that _X_ never happens, it would make sense to state that clearly: _You might think this never happens, but it *does* happen occasionally._

Of course, you can use _more common _and _more frequent_ as adjectives that mean roughly same thing. Similarly, you can use _more commonly, more frequently, _and _more often _as adverbial phrases.


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## lingobingo

To say that something happens “*more often/frequently* than you think” (_you_ meaning people in general) means exactly what it says and nothing more — that it’s a *more common* occurrence than most people realise. It’s a simple statement about the relative number of times something happens. It does not express any assumption about whoever you’re saying it to, except perhaps to imply that they’ve probably never even given this subject much thought.

You’re making the mistake of reading much more into an expression than the words themselves either mean or imply. Since this happens so often on this forum (it’s more common than you’d think! ), I can only assume that some non-European languages work very differently from English.


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## vikky7695

owlman5 said:


> Both interpretations are possible, vikky7695. By itself, _X happens more often than you think it does _really doesn't tell us anything solid about other people's estimates of probability. I generally _assume_ that people imagine that others believe _X _occurs occasionally.
> 
> If you assume that somebody else believes that _X_ never happens, it would make sense to state that clearly: _You might think this never happens, but it *does* happen occasionally._
> 
> Of course, you can use _more common _and _more frequent_ as adjectives that mean roughly same thing. Similarly, you can use _more commonly, more frequently, _and _more often _as adverbial phrases.


On another forum , a senior member told me that this kind of usage is governed by PRAGMATICS, I generally _assume_ that people imagine that others believe _X _occurs occasionally - I also think the same . If these things are governed by PRAGMATICS ,I wonder whether people are aware of such kind of rules ..


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## owlman5

vikky7695 said:


> If these things are governed by PRAGMATICS ,I wonder whether people are aware of such kind of rules ..


I've never thought about _pragmatics_ in my life, vikky. Although I have never heard anybody else mention pragmatics in any conversation with me, I have probably run across that word in a book somewhere before. It looks vaguely familiar...


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## vikky7695

owlman5 said:


> I've never thought about _pragmatics_ in my life, vikky. Although I have never heard anybody else mention pragmatics in any conversation with me, I have probably run across that word in a book somewhere before. It looks vaguely familiar...


ok Owlman,got your point.So ,will the usage of mkre


owlman5 said:


> I've never thought about _pragmatics_ in my life, vikky. Although I have never heard anybody else mention pragmatics in any conversation with me, I have probably run across that word in a book somewhere before. It looks vaguely familiar...


Owlman , so do you think that even the usage of 'more common' do you assume -- I generally _assume_ that people imagine that others believe _X _occurs occasionally?


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## owlman5

vikky7695 said:


> I generally _assume_ that people imagine that others believe _X _occurs occasionally?


I _do_ make that assumption, Vikky.



vikky7695 said:


> When we read an article on the internet saying that some Event X takes place more frequently than you think.What is in the mind of the author who writes this article?


The author probably also makes that assumption: _my readers believe that X occurs occasionally._  An author who did not believe that would probably choose something else to say in his article.


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## vikky7695

I recently read an article in which the Heading was 'Bestiality is much , much more common than you think'  and inside the article the author had mentioned that 'You might think that bestiality is extinct' , so I think the usage of more common b the author is not correct over  here . What do you think Owlman? This think seems so obvious to me even being a non native English speaker ??


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## kentix

Since people live together in society and read many of the same newspapers, websites, magazines, books, etc. and watch many of the same TV programs, news shows, movies, etc. and listen to the same commentators talk about many different things and talk to each other about all kinds of things all the time, it gives them a general idea about what is well known in society by most people. So, to me, when someone says that, they are basing it on what they know and think because their relationships with other people gives them a pretty good idea what other people know and think.

If you have been reading and watching TV and going to movies all your life and you have never seen an example of a dog swimming underwater with scuba gear you are probably going to think most other people have never seen that either. You get your information where most other people get their information. So it might surprise you to see this:






And then if you read about dogs swimming with scuba gear and find out that there are people who make scuba gear for dogs you might then think dogs swimming underwater is more common than you thought before (which you might never have thought about at all before, like lingo says above). And if it's more common than you realized, it's also easy to think it's more common than other people realized. It doesn't matter exactly how common or uncommon it is, if it's more common than never it might be more common than you or most people ever realized.


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## owlman5

vikky7695 said:


> I recently read an article in which the Heading was 'Bestiality is much , much more common than you think'  and inside the article the author had mentioned that 'You might think that bestiality is extinct' , so I think the usage of more common b the author is not correct over  here . What do you think Owlman? This think seems so obvious to me even being a non native English speaker ??



Hmmm. There isn't any cut and dried rule concerning how people use _X is much more common than you think. _As long as the author used _You might think that bestiality is extinct, _he made it clear that -- in his view -- some people were not aware that bestiality still existed.

You may be worrying too much about what people actually believe when they write _X is much more common than you think. _The phrase really isn't tricky or confusing. Who cares whether you believe that X _never _occurs or that X _occasionally _occurs? In either case, it still makes sense to say that _X is much more common than you think _if you believe that some readers underestimate the frequency of X.


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## vikky7695

Ye s


owlman5 said:


> Hmmm. There isn't any cut and dried rule concerning how people use _X is much more common than you think. _As long as the author used _You might think that bestiality is extinct, _he made it clear that -- in his view -- some people were not aware that bestiality still existed.
> 
> You may be worrying too much about what people actually believe when they write _X is much more common than you think. _The phrase really isn't tricky or confusing. Who cares whether you believe that X _never _occurs or that X _occasionally _occurs? In either case, it still makes sense to say that _X is much more common than you think _if you believe that some readers underestimate the frequency of X.



Yes Owlman , U are right , I am probably worrying too much about this topic . One senior member on a forum told me that everyday English usage is governed by rules and those rules are called ' Pragmatics'  , which basically mean how people generally interpret bald statements . That's how I was trying to study the usage of 'more common' , ' more often' etc. The senior member was of the opinion that phrases like 'more often', 'more common' always compare 2 events with relative frequencies and NOT 2 events in which frequency of 1st event is 0 and frequency of 2nd event is more . Wonder what he was trying to say exactly?


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## owlman5

His idea about the use of _more common, _etc. sounds reasonable to me. In most cases, people who use phrases like that should be thinking in terms of relative frequencies. 

However, it makes sense to understand that some writers may stray away from this general principle. Try not to be too surprised if you find exceptions to the principle among the millions or billions of words that people have posted on the internet.


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## vikky7695

owlman5 said:


> His idea about the use of _more common, _etc. sounds reasonable to me. In most cases, people who use phrases like that should be thinking in terms of relative frequencies.
> 
> However, it makes sense to understand that some writers may stray away from this general principle. Try not to be too surprised if you find exceptions to the principle among the millions or billions of words that people have posted on the internet.


Yes Owlman.u are right. I think the correct usage is still not common knowledge.


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## kentix

Well, there isn't really a big difference. The first value could be 0 or it could be something greater than zero. Whatever it is, the second value is higher. That's the key point. Whatever the first value is, the second value is higher. Anything is higher than zero so that's easy. If you think something never happens and you find even one example, then it happens more than you think. If you believe it happens but think it's very infrequent based on your personal knowledge and then you look around and find examples in many places, then you have to believe it's more frequent than you originally thought.

A good example is earthquakes. Only the bigger earthquakes are reported in the news. If you are an average person who only reads the news, you might think that the only earthquakes that happen are the ones you read about. Maybe a couple a month. So in your mind you have the idea that there are several earthquakes a month.

But if you go to a website about earthquakes, you will find out there are hundreds of earthquakes every day. You are surprised by that. You find that most of them are so small that they never get reported in the news. You know you are like most people and so you believe that would be surprising to most people, too. So you can say in an online article "Earthquakes happen much more frequently than you might think." You don't know what every single person knows (some will know all about earthquakes) but you know there are probably thousands of people just like you who haven't visited earthquake sites to learn that information. They probably think what you thought - that there are only a few every month.

That's the pragmatics - the practical information that you have in your brain that let's you estimate how many people are out there who are like you were and don't know much about earthquakes. That practical information comes from life experience. You can't get that information from grammar. It's something you already know.

Something that might be silly to say is "More people eat food than you think." The practical information you have is that everybody eats food and everybody else knows everybody eats food. You can't possibly believe that there are people who commonly believe that other people don't eat food. It's not a very practical belief because it doesn't match your life experience.

pragmatics - 2 *: *a branch of linguistics that is concerned with the relationship of sentences to the environment in which they occur

So grammar doesn't answer everything. Language is used by people in the real world who have real world experience. They base what they say on that experience. They have an idea of how common certain things are and think other people have similar ideas. They know that no person has ever been to Mars and they know other people know that. They know that scuba diving dogs are rare but they have learned that they might be less rare than most people think. They know that earthquakes happen. They used to think there were only a few. Now they have learned there are more than that. So they know that there are more than many people think. They know that everyone eats food and every one knows that. Eating food is something that is unlikely to be "more common than many people think". It's 100% common. But it might be true that more people are on a liquid-only diet than many people think. People usually think of food as solid. But people with certain medical conditions might not be able to eat solid food. The number of those people might be higher than most people realize. They might be surprised how many people can't eat solid food. They probably think it's a very small number but it might not be as small as they think. Maybe they might guess it's 0.1% and it's really 2%. That's 20 times more even though it's still a small number. So all it means is quantity 2 is greater than quantity 1. (I made up those numbers. I don't know the real numbers.)


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## vikky7695

kentix said:


> Well, there isn't really a big difference. The first value could be 0 or it could be something greater than zero. Whatever it is, the second value is higher. That's the key point. Whatever the first value is, the second value is higher. Anything is higher than zero so that's easy. If you think something never happens and you find even one example, then it happens more than you think. If you believe it happens but think it's very infrequent based on your personal knowledge and then you look around and find examples in many places, then you have to believe it's more frequent than you originally thought.
> 
> A good example is earthquakes. Only the bigger earthquakes are reported in the news. If you are an average person who only reads the news, you might think that the only earthquakes that happen are the ones you read about. Maybe a couple a month. So in your mind you have the idea that there are several earthquakes a month.
> 
> But if you go to a website about earthquakes, you will find out there are hundreds of earthquakes every day. You are surprised by that. You find that most of them are so small that they never get reported in the news. You know you are like most people and so you believe that would be surprising to most people, too. So you can say in an online article "Earthquakes happen much more frequently than you might think." You don't know what every single person knows (some will know all about earthquakes) but you know there are probably thousands of people just like you who haven't visited earthquake sites to learn that information. They probably think what you thought - that there are only a few every month.
> 
> That's the pragmatics - the practical information that you have in your brain that let's you estimate how many people are out there who are like you were and don't know much about earthquakes. That practical information comes from life experience. You can't get that information from grammar. It's something you already know.
> 
> Something that might be silly to say is "More people eat food than you think." The practical information you have is that everybody eats food and everybody else knows everybody eats food. You can't possibly believe that there are people who commonly believe that other people don't eat food. It's not a very practical belief because it doesn't match your life experience.
> 
> pragmatics - 2 *: *a branch of linguistics that is concerned with the relationship of sentences to the environment in which they occur
> 
> So grammar doesn't answer everything. Language is used by people in the real world who have real world experience. They base what they say on that experience. They have an idea of how common certain things are and think other people have similar ideas. They know that no person has ever been to Mars and they know other people know that. They know that scuba diving dogs are rare but they have learned that they might be less rare than most people think. They know that earthquakes happen. They used to think there were only a few. Now they have learned there are more than that. So they know that there are more than many people think. They know that everyone eats food and every one knows that. Eating food is something that is unlikely to be "more common than many people think". It's 100% common. But it might true that more people are on a liquid-only diet than many people think. People usually think of food as solid. But people with certain medical conditions might not be able to eat solid food. The number of those people might be higher than most people realize. They might be surprised how many people can't eat solid food. They probably think it's a very small number but it might not be as small as they think. Maybe they think it's 0.1% and it's really 2%. That's 20 times more even though it's still a small number.


Good Answer . So ,in your opinion do.you think that the following usage of more common and more frequently is correct?
Person A to Person B - This event never takes place.
Person B to Person A - This event takes place more frequently (or is more common) than you just said.


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## kentix

If it happens once it's more common than never. So if Person B knows of one example, he can say that truthfully.


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## lentulax

vikky7695 said:


> Person A to Person B - This event never takes place.
> Person B to Person A - This event takes place more frequently (or is more common) than you just said.



The problem here is the usual one, that sentences made up to illustrate usage fail to reflect real-life contexts. B could logically say this (#16), but in what real-life situation would such a conversation take place? If you said 'Earthquakes never happen' , people would reply 'That's simply not true/Of course they do!/Do you never watch the news?/ What world are you living in? What do you mean, 'never happen?' ' etc. etc. A : 'Dogs may be able to swim underwater, but no dog ever used scuba gear!' B : 'That's where you're wrong!/Well, you live and learn [as I've done!].../As it happens, my friend's firm Scubadog has been selling gear for dogs for three years' etc. No-one would reply 'Earthquakes are more common than you just said' or 'Dogs using scuba gear are more common than you just said'. If you are talking to one person who has already expressed a belief that the event in question never happens, that's quite a different situation. Kentix's careful and very clear explanation (#14) deals with 'more common than you might think' as it would be used in real life.


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## vikky7695

kentix said:


> If it happens once it's more common than never. So if Person B knows of one example, he can say that truthfully.


As per your reply ,even if the event happens once , its more often than never right? I have read on another forum that comparing a never event (in which case frequency is equal to zero)by using 'more often' and ' more frequent'  doesn't make sense .What are your thoughts on this ?


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## kentix

It doesn't make great sense but it's true. 1 is more than 0. Zero is a frequency.


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## vikky7695

kentix said:


> It doesn't make great sense but it's true. 1 is more than 0. Zero is a frequency.


So , as per your understanding , it would not be wrong to compare  an event with frequency 0 to  an event with frequency >0 using more often/more frequent?Also , why do u feel it doesn't make great sense??


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## kentix

Because although it's mathematically true English is not mathematics. People speak socially. And they generally expect frequency to mean something above zero.


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## vikky7695

kentix said:


> Because although it's mathematically true English is not mathematics. People speak socially. And they generally expect frequency to mean something above zero.


Will the usage of more often/more frequent to compare event with frequency 0 to an event with frequency >0 be OK with you or will it make no sense if used in normal English language and not mathematically??


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## lentulax

Can the question 'How often does it happen?' receive the answer  'Never' ? Yes.


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## vikky7695

lentulax said:


> Can the question 'How often does it happen?' receive the answer  'Never' ? Yes.


That's true , but 


lentulax said:


> Can the question 'How often does it happen?' receive the answer  'Never' ? Yes.


What I meant to ask is that if I believe that an event never happens buy you know it does.So ,will you reply with the statement that the event takes place more frequently /more often than you believe.


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## lentulax

vikky7695 said:


> What I meant to ask is that if I believe that an event never happens buy you know it does. So ,will you reply with the statement that the event takes place more frequently /more often than you believe.



No - but that's nothing to do with the 'more often than you believe' - it's because, as I said (#17) , if you tell me that X *never* happens, and I disagree, I'll say 'But it does,' (and give evidence). There are lots of answers which would 'make sense', but would never be said - for example, I wouldn't reply 'In fact, it has happened more than zero times.'


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## Myridon

vikky7695 said:


> So , as per your understanding , it would not be wrong to compare  an event with frequency 0 to  an event with frequency >0 using more often/more frequent?Also , why do u feel it doesn't make great sense??


When the Mad Hatter offers Alice "more tea," she objects because she hasn't had any tea. She says that you have to have some tea before you can have more tea.  His response is that you can always have more tea, but you can never have less tea.


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## vikky7695

kentix said:


> Because although it's mathematically true English is not mathematics. People speak socially. And they generally expect frequency to mean something above zero.


I agree ,so this means that although people sometimes use more common ,more frequent,more often to compare events with 0 frequency to a greater frequency , generally their usage is meant to compare 2 frequencies with 1st being >0 and 2nd frequency >1st frequency, Am I right?



kentix said:


> It doesn't make great sense but it's true. 1 is more than 0. Zero is a frequency.


So , do people still use more often / more frequent to compare event with 0 frequency to greater than 0 frequency event although its not socially acceptable ?


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## vikky7695

kentix said:


> If it happens once it's more common than never. So if Person B knows of one example, he can say that truthfully.



Hello Kentix ,
Please refer below link :-
Is the usage of "more frequently" or "more often" correct in this scenario?

This has some info. om exactly why usage of 'more common' might not be correct  here.


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## vikky7695

lentulax said:


> No - but that's nothing to do with the 'more often than you believe' - it's because, as I said (#17) , if you tell me that X *never* happens, and I disagree, I'll say 'But it does,' (and give evidence). There are lots of answers which would 'make sense', but would never be said - for example, I wouldn't reply 'In fact, it has happened more than zero times.'


Thanks for the reply .
Does the following usage of 'more common' makes sense ?
Person A : The hippie culture has died out .(meaning it no longer exists)
Person B :The hippie culture is still more common than you say .


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## lingobingo

No, that dialogue doesn’t work. The reply doesn’t relate naturally to the previous statement. And it’s not even clear whether *you* means Person A or people in general.

Person A: Hippie culture has died out.
Person B: No, it hasn’t. It still exists, despite what you say.

Person A: Hippie culture is dead now, except maybe in a few old people.
Person B: No. It’s more common than you seem to think.
Person B: No. It’s more common than people realize.


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## vikky7695

lingobingo said:


> No, that dialogue doesn’t work. The reply doesn’t relate naturally to the previous statement. And it’s not even clear whether *you* means Person A or people in general.
> 
> Person A: Hippie culture has died out.
> Person B: No, it hasn’t. It still exists, despite what you say.
> 
> Person A: Hippie culture is dead now, except maybe in a few old people.
> Person B: No. It’s more common than you seem to think.
> Person B: No. It’s more common than people realize.


you means person A.


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## lingobingo

vikky7695 said:


> you means person A.


Which is why that reply makes no sense. You can only use the comparative “more common than you say” if the person you’re speaking to has said that it’s common. But in this case they said it doesn’t exist at all.


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## vikky7695

lingobingo said:


> Which is why that reply makes no sense. You can only use the comparative “more common than you say” if the person you’re speaking to has said that it’s common. But in this case they said it doesn’t exist at all.


I recently read an article with the heading that 'Beastiality is more common than you think' and inside it was written that 'you might think that beastiality had died out'.It seemed pretty unnatural to me , that's why I asked this question.


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## lingobingo

Yes. But you’re now muddling up that meaning (*than you think* = than everyone thinks = than people think = *than is generally thought [to be the case]*) with a situation in which one person is commenting on what another, whom they naturally address as “you”, has just said.


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## vikky7695

lingobingo said:


> Yes. But you’re now muddling up that meaning (*than you think* = than everyone thinks = than people think = *than is generally thought [to be the case]*) with a situation in which one person is commenting on what another, whom they naturally address as “you”, has just said.


when a writer annotates as you,i guess he refers to the general public.


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## lingobingo

Yes. Quite simply, *you* can mean the person you’re talking to, or it can mean *one* (in the sense of anyone / people in general). Which of those it means depends entirely on the context in which it’s used.


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## vikky7695

lingobingo said:


> Yes. Quite simply, *you* can mean the person you’re talking to, or it can mean *one* (in the sense of anyone / people in general). Which of those it means depends entirely on the context in which it’s used.


pls see the attached image..


please give ur comments if you think the usage of more common is natural or not??


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## lingobingo

Yes, it’s fine. I don’t understand why you’re still asking about this. In that case the reader is being addressed as “you” and the writer is assuming that the reader (being representative of people in general) thinks bestiality has died out.


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## vikky7695

lingobingo said:


> Yes, it’s fine. I don’t understand why you’re still asking about this. In that case the reader is being addressed as “you” and the writer is assuming that the reader (being representative of people in general) thinks bestiality has died out.


but u just said that we use more common only when person A assumes its at least common,In the above scenario,person A (you)thinks that bestiality has died out or it is extinct,so,how can the writer say that it is more common than you think.


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## lingobingo

What are you still unsure about? The use of you to mean either a particular person or people in general? Or the fact that *more* *common* is a comparative, so there needs to be something that it’s more common *than*? They’re different issues, and I’ve already tried to explain them.


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## vikky7695

lingobingo said:


> What are you still unsure about? The use of you to mean either a particular person or people in general? Or the fact that *more* *common* is a comparative, so there needs to be something that it’s more common *than*? They’re different issues, and I’ve already tried to explain them.


the more common as a comparative,I.think we should only use more common when we compare with a less common event and not if other person thinks that the evevnt no longer takes place.(has died out)


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## lingobingo

Yes. That’s what I said in #32.


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## vikky7695

lingobingo said:


> Yes. That’s what I said in #32.


then,why did u say that the writer's usage of more common is correct in the article??even the writer is comparing died out which means extinct to more common.


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## lingobingo

That usage has no antecedent. It’s based on an assumption as to what the reader might think. None of it needs to be taken so literally.

It happens more often than you think = It happens suprisingly frequently​


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## Myridon

The headline and the sentence in the article do not need to be related in the way consecutive sentences are in a conversation.


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## vikky7695

Thanks for the reply lingo Bimbo.
So if not taken so literally , 
1.)can we even use 'more frequently' to compare 0 frequency event to a greater frequency event . 
2.)can we even use 'more often' to compare 0 frequency event to a greater frequency event .



Myridon said:


> The headline and the sentence in the article do not need to be related in the way consecutive sentences are in a conversation.


So,do the writers of the articles in general think before using terms like 'more frequent' and 'more often' , exactly what the intended audience has in mind regarding the frequency of the events tje writer bases his article heading on??


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## Myridon

What I mean is: The person writing the headline is thinking about the meaning of the entire article, not about the wording of the first sentence.


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## DonnyB

A number of members have now done their best to explain the differences between the three terms, as had been originally asked.  It seems to me that continuing the discussion, with the introduction of further examples, querying why the authors have made the choices which they have, is unlikely to prove fruitful and I'm therefore now closing this thread.

Thanks to everyone for their contributions, which I hope vikky has found useful.  DonnyB - moderator.


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