Suppose I sorted something, for example fruits, into groups, say apples, bananas, oranges.
Is it correct to say "the distribution of the fruits into the groups shows that the group of fruits consists of significantly more apples than oranges"?
I'm unsure about the "into". It feels like it might be something like "distribution onto groups" instead. However that feels wrong, too.
A native speaker would be much more likely to say I classified the fruits into groups rather than I distributed the fruits into groups. Hence he would also be more likely to say The classification of the fruits into the groups shows that the group of fruits consists of significantly more apples than oranges (alluding to the prior act of classifying / distributing).
Alternatively, The distribution of the fruits across the groups more explicitly references distribution as the relative difference in numbers, rather than the act of classifying itself.
That's to say, the distribution across [some range of categories] is the normal preposition usage when you want to focus on the fact that different categories have different (types or numbers of) members.
