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.hard...@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. >> >> ______________________________________________ >> R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help >> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/ >> posting-guide.html >> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. >> > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
