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Turkeys are grown in many areas across the United States. Last year, nearly 70% of the birds came from one of seven states. They were Minnesota, North Carolina, Arkansas, Virginia, Missouri, Indiana and California.

Here, what does "one of seven states" mean? Does it just mean seven states, or one seventh of all the states in the United States?

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    "one seventh" would be "one in seven" or "one out of seven", not "one of seven". – Peter Shor Nov 30 '13 at 16:19
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    In this case, allowing for rounding-to-integer, it amounts to the same thing. – StoneyB on hiatus Nov 30 '13 at 21:30
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The "one of seven states" simply means "any one state in the given seven states".

In your context, it refers to any one of "these following states": Minnesota, North Carolina, Arkansas, Virginia, Missouri, Indiana and California.

Roughly, the sentence means: most (70%) birds (the turkeys) are grown in these seven states.

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