On Sun, 24 Jun 2018 20:16:24 -0400 JRG <loesl...@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 ______________________________________________ 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.
