[R] OT --- grammar.

[David Winsemius]

I’m surprised no on has reference the F distribution where the degrees of freedom are manifestly plural.

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jun 25, 2018, at 6:05 PM, John <jwd using surewest.net> wrote:
> 
> On Sun, 24 Jun 2018 20:16:24 -0400
> JRG <loesljrg using accucom.net> wrote:
> 
>>> 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.
>> 
> In fact, "the data are/is inconclusive" is shorthand for a longer
> sentence.  Data are merely observations.  It is only after they are
> made and summarized that a conclusion might be reached.  In which
> case it was the analysis of the data that was inconclusive.  Since many
> analyses of a single data set can be conducted and they are not
> necessarily all going to be inconclusive, it really never was the data
> that were inconclusive.
> 
> JWDoughetry
> 
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