Most of the men / Most men prefer (2025)

The sentence below was taken from the results of a survey.

“Most of the men prefer cycling to swimming.”

My question is: Should it start with ‘most men’ or ‘most of the men’?

Kadjar said:

The sentence below was taken from the results of a survey.

“Most of the men prefer cycling to swimming.”

My question is: Should it start with ‘most men’ or ‘most of the men’?

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Given that it's the result of a survey, most of the men points the contrast with the women.

Most men would be inappropriate because it feels like a global comment, stepping out beyond the limits of the survey.

Thomas Tompion said:

Given that it's the result of a survey, most of the men points the contrast with the women.

Most men would be inappropriate because it feels like a global comment, stepping out beyond the limits of the survey.

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But aren't surveys frequently used to extrapolate conclusions? As in "according to the survey, men tend to show this preference". This isn't a rebuttal, it's a genuine question.

You could only use a survey to state global preferences if the survey was performed in many different countries. I would doubt that the preference in, say, Hawaii was the same as in Uganda. Beware of extrapolating conclusions - it leads to ethnocentrism.

So it's best to stick with "the men" although some writers might possibly choose the opposite.

MrMuselk said:

If I were to put “most men”, I’d specify the region or nation, e.g. “Most men in the UK/in London (I’d personally say “Most Londoners if it were the case of the city of London, same with other cities) prefer cycling to swimming”.

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Isn't the point that this comment on a survey is drawing a contrast between the men in the survey and the women in the survey?

That's a further reason for needing to say most of the men, rather than most men.

Thomas Tompion said:

Isn't the point that this comment on a survey is drawing a contrast between the men in the survey and the women in the survey?

That's a further reason for needing to say most of the men, rather than most men.

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I didn’t see any mention of having to draw a contrast between the men and women in the survey in the OP. While it is true that most of the men is a better option when referring to the answers of only the men of the survey, I was answering a slightly different nuance of the question.

MrMuselk said:

[...]
I didn’t see any mention of having to draw a contrast between the men and women in the survey in the OP.

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If you say, as it did, Most of the men, it seems clear that you are contrasting the men with the women.

There is no other obvious contrasting category. It's not as though they investigated the preferences of domestic animals.