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“The debate was in Wisconsin, but the candidates were clearly focused on the next primary, in South Carolina, where African-Americans could decide the outcome.” Notice that it takes note of only one kind of minority in the United States. The title of this 2016 video is “Clinton and Sanders fight for minority votes in Milwaukee debate.” In his book, Words on the Move, McWhorter writes that Americans often think of specific groups of people when using the term ‘minority.’ “In the minds of American English speakers… minorities are considered to be black and Latino people,” he adds.Ī report on the television program “CBS This Morning” provides an example of what McWhorter is talking about. John McWhorter is an American expert on language. One of them is a “racial, religious, ethnic, or political group smaller than and differing from the larger, controlling group in a community, nation, etc.”īut such definitions do not always line up with how Americans use terms, as we will see. Webster’s New World Dictionary, 4th edition, for example, lists four main meanings. Webster’s Dictionary of 1828 notes one was: “the state of being under age.” The other was “the smaller number as the minority of the senate or house of representatives opposed to majority.”īy the beginning of the 21st century, minority had taken on more meanings. Minority slowly took on new meanings during the 1700s.īy the 19th century, minority generally had two meanings. By the 1530s, the English term meant “state or condition of being smaller.” But it does not really carry that meaning anymore. The Online Etymology Dictionary notes that minority comes from the Middle French word minorité. Google N-Gram showing use of Minority from 1500 - 2008