What are the agreements with 'la mayoría'?

Question

I am trying to say:

'But most of them are too boring.' (them being los)

I have worked out so far:

'Pero la mayoría de los son demasiados pesados.'

I don't know whether the 'demasiado pesado' agrees with the 'los' of 'documentales' or the 'la' of 'mayoriá'. Which one is the correct agreement?

Answer 1

What was I thinking? Of course it has to be:

"Pero la mayoría de ellos son demasiados pesados."

Geof is correct. Good catch!

Demasiado pesada. - DualG, Nov 4, 2012

Answer 2

Oh dear! My grammar book (back in 1955) told me that in Spanish the agreement is with the last-quoted substantive not, as in educated English, with the true subject. This obviously disagrees with Julian for which I apologise.

This would give us "la mayoria de ellos son demasiados pesados."

The problem comes from the refinement of English grammar and language that took place in the century of the schoolmasters, the 19th, when educators in England believed that we spoke or should speak using a grammar based chiefly on classical Latin, not necessarily a brilliant notion for a living language. You can read these 19th century rules in Fowler if you want to be better acquainted with them or, for relief, you can try Jespersen's rather wiser conclusions on how the English language is really used.