[R] OT --- grammar.

[JRG]

On 06/24/2018 08:03 PM, Bert Gunter wrote:
> Ted, et. al.:
> 
> Re: "Data is" vs "data are" ... Heh heh!
> 
> "This is the kind of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put."
> (Attributed to Churchill in one form or another, likely wrongly.)
> 
> See here for some semi-authoritative dicussion:
> 
> http://www.onlinegrammar.com.au/top-10-grammar-myths-data-is-plural-so-must-take-a-plural-verb/


Hmmm.  "semi-authoritative or not", the 1980 Edition of the Oxford
American dictionary says:

"data (day-ta) n. pl. facts or information ...  'Data' should not be
used with a singular verb, as in 'the data is inconclusive'; it is by
origin a Latin plural (the singular is 'datum') and should be used with
a plural verb. ..."


Interesting how Latin seemed to have changed in the past 40 or so years.


---JRG

John R. Gleason



> 
> Cheers,
> Bert
> 
> 
> 
> Bert Gunter
> 
> "The trouble with having an open mind is that people keep coming along and
> sticking things into it."
> -- Opus (aka Berkeley Breathed in his "Bloom County" comic strip )
> 
> On Sun, Jun 24, 2018 at 3:44 PM, Ted Harding <ted.harding using wlandres.net>
> wrote:
> 
>> On Mon, 2018-06-25 at 09:46 +1200, Rolf Turner wrote:
>>> Does/should one say "the degrees of freedom is defined to be" or "the
>>> degrees of freedom are defined to be"?
>>>
>>> Although value of "degrees of freedom" is a single number, the first
>>> formulation sounds very odd to my ear.
>>>
>>> I would like to call upon the collective wisdom of the R community to
>>> help me decide.
>>>
>>> Thanks, and my apologies for the off-topic post.
>>>
>>> cheers,
>>> Rolf Turner
>>
>> Interesting question, Rolf!
>> >From my point of view. I see "degrees of freedon" as a plural noun,
>> because of "degrees". But in some cases, we have only 1 degree of
>> freedon. Then the degrees of freedon is 1.
>>
>> But we do not say, in that case, "the degree of freedom is defined
>> to be", or the degree of freedom are 1"
>>
>> Nor would we say "The degrees of freedom are 19".!
>>
>> So I thonk that the solution is to encapsulate the term within
>> aingle quotes, so that it becomes a singular entity. Thus:
>>
>> The 'degrees of freedom' is defined to be ... "; and
>> The 'degrees of freedom' is 1.
>> Or
>> The degrees of freedom' is 19.
>>
>> This is not the same issue as (one of my prime hates) saying
>> "the data is srored in the dataframe ... ". "Data" is a
>> plural noun (ainguler "datum"), and I would insist on
>> "the data are stored ... ". The French use "une donnee" and
>> "les donnees"; the Germans use "ein Datum", "der Daten";
>> so they know what they're doing! English-speakers mostly do not"
>>
>> Best wishes to all,
>> Ted.
>>
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> 
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