Re: OT: the data are irksome

["Patricia M. Godfrey" priscamg@xxxxxxxx]

Flash wrote:
> "... morphs into..." Ugh! "The port transitions to full duplex mode" is
> another one that irks me. Should be "... changes to ..."
Yes. More inflation.
> I used to be bothered when "data" became a singular noun, but I gave up
> defending an obviously lost cause.
Data as a singular is not unique. There are other words that started
as plural and became singular because the came to be perceived as
collectives. `Agenda' is the locus classicus. When we say `data' now
we so often mean what programmers would call a data set that the
change to singular makes sense. I think that candelabra will
eventually be accepted as a singular, in the sense of A many-branched
candlestick.
> "Media" is the next one, I'm afraid. I'm
> still defending that one.
I too. There is a distinction there that is worth preserving. The
press is one medium, TV another, the blogosphere another; all together
they are the media. But I suspect that the other sense of medium
(someone who claims to be able to communicate with the dead) makes
people hesitate to use the singular.
> Networkers often talk about "growing a network" when they mean, and
> ought to say, "enlarging". You grow a beard or a lawn, not a network.
Yes, well, they got this from MBA-speak, where "growing your business"
is a common (in several senses) expression. Ugh!

--
Patricia M. Godfrey
PriscaMG@xxxxxxxx