# Swedish: flertalet/ett flertal



## e2efour

How is one to interpret _flertalet_ in the following sentence (from medical notes):
"Sedan föreg. kontroll har i båda lungorna tillkommit flertalet upp till 1 cm stora kraftigt metastassuspekta nodulära förändringar."

There seems to be some(!) ambiguity here:
a) Has _flertalet_ been used wrongly instead of _ett flertal _("quite a number of") or _flera_ ("several")? If so, does this mistake still happen in Swedish?
b) Can it be taken as "har tillkommit (flertalet av dem upp till 1 cm stora) kraftigt metastassuspekta förändringar" (i.e. "majority of them"?)
c) The sentence has been written out correctly. In which case, what does it mean?

I have no problems telling the difference between _ett_ _flertal_and _flertalet_, but some Swedish speakers seem to.


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## Tjahzi

e2efour said:


> I have no problems telling the difference between _ett_ _flertal_ and _flertalet_, but some Swedish speakers seem to.



I guess I'm one of those, because to me the expressions are more or less interchangeable. 

The sentence in question is indeed to be interpreted as that _a number of_ x have appeared. However, I suppose you have learnt that _flertalet_ is used exclusively to denote the majority of an already known amount of something? As in, _ett flertal x har uppkommit, varav flertalet verkar..._


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## zyzzy

I'm also one of those Swedish speakers who have problems telling the difference, apparently. 

(1) I didn't see anything wrong with the sentence at first, and I think "flertalet" and "ett flertal" are used somewhat interchangeably. But according to SAOB, "ett flertal" (a number of) is not the same thing as "flertalet" (the majority of). So, I guess the author has used "flertalet" incorrectly, even though it's often used that way. 

(b) The correct interpretation is, in my opinion, the one where "flertalet" is used incorrectly:
_... har tillkommit flera (upp till 1 cm stora) förändringar_
Interpreting "flertalet" as "the majority" (the correct use) is probably not what's intended. To express that, I would use: 
_... har tillkommit förändringar, flertalet av dem upp till 1 cm stora_
instead of 
_har tillkommit (flertalet av dem upp till 1 cm stora) kraftigt metastassuspekta förändringar_
which feels clumsy. To use "flertalet" as "the majority of", I think it's best to have something to refer back to first. 

(c) My quick translation: _Since the previous check, several up to 1 cm big nodular formations, __highly suspicious for metastasis,__ have appeared. _But it's medical lingo, so who knows...


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## AutumnOwl

There is no use to try to apply any kind of correct grammatical use or understanding of the grammar when it comes to Swedish medical records, I know that after having written down those records for 30 years now. The word _flertalet_ is used quite often by doctors, sometimes instead of _ett flertal_, sometimes instead of _flera_. Much of the text in the case records is a form of "verbal shorthand" and not grammatically correct, and I as a secretary can't make any corrections in the records, I have to write down exactly what the doctors are saying, regardless how bad it has been formulated.

In this case I would guess (without having seen the x-rays) that there are several new lesions in the lungs and that the lesions seems to be metastases, and many of those are up to 1 cm in diameter.


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## jonquiliser

I would have trouble distinguish the two in the abstract, I use both extremely rarely and haven't really thought about what they mean or don't. In this phrase, however, it looks wrong to me. Spontaneously I'd had interpreted the context to be research and that it turns out several of the patients now show changes in their lungs. That can't be it though, and I would change "flertalet" for "ett flertal".


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## e2efour

It is not up to me to be prescriptive about Swedish , but I think it's a pity that the distinction between flertalet and [ett] flertal is not always made. It seems to me that the language loses something as a result.
Would anyone like to guess what the percentage of speakers is who use flertalet in the sense of flera? Förhoppningsvis ej flertalet!

I have also noticed that sometimes no distinction is made between fler and flera, so we get the ambiguous sentence _Vi får flera arbetslösa_ _i år _(more unemployed or several unemployed?).


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## AutumnOwl

jonquiliser said:


> I would have trouble distinguish the two in the abstract, I use both extremely rarely and haven't really thought about what they mean or don't. In this phrase, however, it looks wrong to me. Spontaneously I'd had interpreted the context to be research and that it turns out several of the patients now show changes in their lungs. That can't be it though, and I would change "flertalet" for "ett flertal".


I think it's not about several patients here but one x-ray made on one patient and that patient have several changes in his/her lungs.


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## e2efour

AutumnOwl said:


> I think it's not about several patients here but one x-ray made on one patient and that patient have several changes in his/her lungs.


You are correct!


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## jonquiliser

AutumnOwl said:


> I think it's not about several patients here but one x-ray made on one patient and that patient have several changes in his/her lungs.



Yes, that's what I mean: flertalet lead me to think we have a case of several patients, which seems to indicate a study or so. But that would make the phrase entirely ungrammatical; so I assumed _flertalet _should be _ett flertal_.


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## Lugubert

This is a question that irritates me a lot, which probably reveals my age. To me, _flertalet_, _ett flerta_l etc. should mean a majority. I have reluctantly had to accept that they nowadays almost every time mean just _many_.


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## zyzzy

e2efour said:


> I have also noticed that sometimes no distinction is made between fler and flera, so we get the ambiguous sentence _Vi får flera arbetslösa_ _i år _(more unemployed or several unemployed?).


Ouch, it really hurts to read that sentence.


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## Tjahzi

A bit off topic, but I'm curious to learn whether you also distinguish "mer" and "mera"?


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## e2efour

I haven't really thought about it, but I've just seen the following website (http://www.regeringen.se/sb/d/2729#F) which says:
I valet mellan "mer" och "mera" gäller att "mer" används i somliga fasta  fraser, t.ex. "mer och mer", medan "mera" används i andra, t.ex. "med  mera". Annars växlar bruket, med den skillnaden att "mer" är mer  skriftspråkligt: "Det var mer än 500 personer på konserten". Ett mer  talspråkligt intryck ger:  "Det var mera än 500 personer på konserten".

So I suppose I should follow this advice. 
I would say _Han kommer aldrig mer_ and not _mera. _Do both of these sound right to you?


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## Lugubert

e2efour said:


> Annars växlar bruket, med den skillnaden att "mer" är mer  skriftspråkligt: "Det var mer än 500 personer på konserten". Ett mer  talspråkligt intryck ger:  "Det var mera än 500 personer på konserten".


The second example sounds not only awkward but almost childish to me.

One customer had very rigid ideas on many translations. I automatically still  write "Det var fler än 500 personer på konserten", and even in speech  use "_fler_" for countables.


> I would say _Han kommer aldrig mer_ and not _mera. _Do both of these sound right to you?


Depends. I suppose, isolated, I'd use the first one, but would probably say "_Han kommer aldrig mera hit_".


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