Everyday Grammar - VOA Learning English Population, Overpopulation, Underpopulation - January 24, 2024
Jan 24, 2024
Clear distinctions between the noun population and the verb populate. Examples of population applied to people, animals, and other living things. When to treat population as countable and when to use populations for separate groups. Typical words that come before and after population in everyday speech. How overpopulation and underpopulation function as non-count nouns.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Population Is More Common Than Populate
- The noun population is far more common in everyday English than the verb populate.
- John Russell cites Google Ngram Viewer frequency comparisons showing population is used much more often in books and speech.
Population Can Be Countable Or Pluralized
- Population means the number of people, animals, or other living things of a kind in an area and is commonly countable.
- John Russell explains we can pluralize it as populations when referring to separate groups like elderly and overweight people.
Common Collocations With Population
- The definite article the most commonly precedes population, and the preposition of most commonly follows it.
- John Russell uses examples: experts said the population declined by 1% and the population of Japan is aging quickly.