Dear FD - Data is plural...

the100thmonkey

the100thmonkey
Nagual said:
I can recall a short sketch by Jimmy Carr, who was making similar comparisons with the difference between the UKs and USAs abbreviation of Mathematics. Here in the UK we tend to say "Maths" and in the USA it tends to be "Math" singular. He thought it should be used in other words. Then he called a large continent of peoples a bunch of word beginning A, but singular.
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I never liked maths. It was too difficult.
 

jabokai

jabokai
Thread title should be "Dearly FD;: Data are plurii". Honestly OP, how do you expect to be taken seriously when you yourselve have no clue off proper english? :(
 

Talarin

T
Mike Juliett Kilo said:
Yeah... "data are correct" is correct, and really the only way that makes sense to me. However, language changes, and in 3300 could well have evolved so that we don't speak correctly anymore :p
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"Data are correct" is not correct is any way. I don't really give a monkeys whether someone else made a rule about it. It's just wrong.

Thanks. :D
 

Nagual

Nagual
Kicks said:
There's nothing wrong with what Frontier have done. :)
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Yaffle said:
Only Frontier Developments PLC is a corporate singular, so it should be Frontier has done.

Complicated, isn't it?
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I suspect he was intending to reference the actual people working in the Elite Office(s). It perhaps, should have been more along the lines of:

There's nothing wrong with what the [team/people/bunch of folks drinking energy drinks like there's no tomorrow] at Frontier have done.
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Complicateder, isn't it... :D

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jabokai said:
Thread title should be "Dearly FD;: Data are plurii". Honestly OP, how do you expect to be taken seriously when you yourselve have no clue off proper english? :(
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Ach, many a mickle makes a muckle!
 

The_Quasar

T
Nagual said:
I can recall a short sketch by Jimmy Carr, who was making similar comparisons with the difference between the UKs and USAs abbreviation of Mathematics. Here in the UK we tend to say "Maths" and in the USA it tends to be "Math" singular. He thought it should be used in other words. Then he called a large continent of peoples a bunch of word beginning A, but singular.





Grammar can bit my shiny metal singular.
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Hmm... should be UK's and USA's.
There are so many differences between English and American. The Americans certainly do not speak or write in English any more.
They even think they have an alternative to the Oxford dictionary! Not in English, they don't!
 

Roberto

R
Nagual said:
While there are many that use data as a plural, there are just as many if not more people who use it as a singular mass noun. Since the rule of language is based on usage, I'd say you pendantary is over ruled by common usage. ;)
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Loath as I am to agree with someone who typed "you pendantary is over ruled", I'm with Nagual on this (sorry, Nagual!). Languages evolve over time according to general usage; or to put it another way, the parole affects the langue as well as vice versa. One drawback to this is that it enables people who can't express themselves properly to claim some justification for their lack of care or understanding, when really they ought to either go back to school or avoid any form of written communication. The upside is that we're not stuck having to speak Latin, or Middle English, fun though they are in small doses. Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages, indeed.

Yes, roll on Horizons :)
 
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Ben_BigBen

Ben_BigBen
You're all ignoramuses (or is that ignorami ? ;) )

I always try to use "data are" but end up with a pause followed by; "err, the data is ....". I just can't bring myself to do it as sounds wrong.
 

Kicks

Kicks
So a Roman walks in to a bar and asks "Can I get a Martinus please?"

The barman says, "Don't you mean a Martini?"

The Roman replies "No, if I wanted more than one, I would have said."
 
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Agony_Aunt

Agony_Aunt
English is an evolving language and one that isn't controlled by any central authority. English is defined by common use.

Common use with data these day is to use it like it is singular, a collective singular noun.

The one place where there is a holdout on this is in academia, where in their ivory towers they still hang onto the old way of treating data as plural.

I do quite a lot of proofreading for technical documents and scientific documents. If its a technical document, then it is always "data is", but if its scientific it is always "data are".

Naturally this drives me crazy.

As for the oxford comma, i'm very firmly in the camp of using it.
 

Nagual

Nagual
Kicks said:
So a Roman walks in to a bar and asks "Can I get a Martinus please?"

The barman says, "Don't you mean a Martini?"

The Roman replies "No, if I wanted more than one, I would have said."
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What would the person from Rome say if he was living in the year 3300? Other than "Yikes! I've lived a long time!"
 

Agony_Aunt

Agony_Aunt
Yaffle said:
Only Frontier Developments PLC is a corporate singular, so it should be Frontier has done.

Complicated, isn't it?
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Its worse than that. Both has and have can be used, depending on whether you are referring to Frontier as the company as a single business entity or Frontier as the people who make up the company.

Engrish is hurd.
 
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