Consensus in English

Sometimes I find myself needing a way to specify how many people agree with me about some subject in a fast conversational way. I think this is something that English doesn’t really have any methodology for, nor do any of the languages I am slightly familiar with.

I think that might be because this is a fairly new problem. It’s not common in a farm town 100 years ago for you to say something with the other person not knowing at all how prevalent your idea is, but in a world where everyone belongs to numerous non-overlapping communities it becomes important. If you are a website designer and you tell me perl isn’t doing so well, or you’re a gamer and you say halo is a good game, but has mediocre production you might not only be talking from an individual level of information. Sometimes you may be relaying information about consensus opinion for an entire community for which you are a part. If that’s the case, I think it might often be useful to know, both so you can make your case and I can more appropriately weigh your information.

If you’re a part of a community I’m not a part of and you’re telling me not only your views, but the consensus view of an entire group devoted to the subject, I would like to know. I think it’s a real need, maybe someone else does too.