Think about something that your friends or people you know like.
Can you bring an image to your mind?
The image that you are thinking of can serve as a starting point for today’s report: the word “popular.”
In today’s Everyday Grammar, we will talk about a useful word that you can use to express all kinds of ideas about what people around you like: actors, celebrations, foods, music — almost anything.
Popular vs. Population
We begin our exploration of the word “popular” by clarifying how it is different from the word population.
Popular and population are closely related words and have somewhat similar spellings. But we should be careful not to mix up the two.
Popular means many people know about someone or something and that they like the person or thing. Population simply describes a group of people.
Another way of expressing the idea is this: something might be popular within a population. In other words, something might be popular within a group of people.
A recent example comes to mind: the Super Bowl. The championship game in American football is a popular event to watch in the United States. A lot of people know about the Super Bowl, watch it, and enjoy it.
So, we could say the United States has a population of over 300 million people. We could also say the Super Bowl is one of the country’s most popular sporting events.
Another way of describing the difference between the words “population” and “popular” is in terms of grammar. Population is a noun. Popular is an adjective.
Consider this example. Taylor Swift is a popular musician. Why is Swift popular? Because a large percentage of the population knows about Swift and enjoys the singer’s music.
Practice
Let’s take some time to work with these ideas. Fill in the blank with the correct answer.