111–120 of 247 posts
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As a native speaker I refuse to say 'these data' or the word datum. I prefer 'this data' for plural and 'this piece of data' for singular. Yes I know its wrong in some sense, but I think that ship has sailed
I've also seen "data point" used when a singular form is required. I think in common usage, "data" is a mass noun like "mayonnaise" rather than a plural.
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The article explains that "children" is a fancified form of "childer" which matches the German "Kinder". The dative has nothing to do with this.
I was referring to where the -n came from. After research it seems it came from the old case system, which originally came from german, not sure if it's the dative plural, was just a theory. Here's more about that: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-en#Etymology_2
The article fails to explain why English moved from en to s for plural forms around 1400, though.
If you’re interested in that sort of minutia, there’s a History of English podcast that goes into it in mind numbing detail. The answer is that the -s plural is from the Vikings/Norse, and the -en plural is from the more complex system inherited from Anglo Saxon languages. English is like a creole or a pidgin language in a lot of ways and a lot of its features are due to various foreign invaders imposing their gramma…
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I can live with "glasses", "pants", "pliers" and "scissors", but "data" drives me crazy because even native speakers seem to be completely inconsistent when it comes to its number. EDIT: Now that I think about it there is another one that is hard for me, even it I know it is the correct form in English: visa (singular) and visas (plural). In my mother tongue it follows the same pattern as datum and data, it's Visum (…
As a native speaker I refuse to say 'these data' or the word datum. I prefer 'this data' for plural and 'this piece of data' for singular. Yes I know its wrong in some sense, but I think that ship has sailed
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That one is actually because it's two different words: "people" is the plural form of "person", i.e. one person, two people, as a group "people" (pl. "peoples") is a group of people as a unit, e.g. a tribe or an ethnic group or the citizens of a country "persons" is ALSO the plural of "person" but only used when you talk about individuals rather than a group (e.g. "person of interest" -> "persons of interest", not "p…
I believe "persons" is similar to "people" but differs in register. For example, there is a UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities . Obviously, native speakers would say "people with disabilities" in almost every situation, but that would be too informal for the title of a treaty. Likewise, law enforcement use formal speech such as "persons of interest" to bolster their authority, but nobody would e…
Admittedly, it's more likely I'd say "I sat next to two Ozzies on the flight." (No, not Aussies, Ozzies. Like Ozzy Ozbourne. Because that's how it sounds to me when Aussies say 'Aussies.')
Worse imho is the "glasses", "pants", "pliers", "scissors", etc thing. Single object with plural name just because it happens to be made of two similar parts. Most objects are made of multiple parts though and they get a singular name just fine. That and the "double u", why not "we"??
Figuring out those things requires too many maths. ;-)
Worse imho is the "glasses", "pants", "pliers", "scissors", etc thing. Single object with plural name just because it happens to be made of two similar parts. Most objects are made of multiple parts though and they get a singular name just fine. That and the "double u", why not "we"??
The W is called "double-u" because it dates from the era when U and V were the same letter (the consonant and vowel versions diverged) and there was no W letter, but only a doubled-U. The phrase, "I want a veal sandwich on Tuesday" would have been spelled, "I uuant a ueal sanduuich on Tuesday" (or, alternatively, "I vvant a veal sandvvich on Tvesday"). This is also why u, v, and w are consecutive in the alphabet. Thi…
> Our father whiche art in heuen,
> halowed be thy name.
> Let thy kyngdome cum vnto vs.
> Thy wyll be fulfylled as well in erthe,
> as it is in heuen.
In the first line we see how U was used within words for both U and V ('our' and 'heaven'). In the third line we see how V was used for words starting with U (as well as words starting with V).
Of course, this isn't universal, there are counter-examples of U used initially and V used medially!
The book The Unfolding of Language[1] describes the forces that shape how language evolves. One is extending the use of a pattern (e.g. "en" for plural), even in cases like this one where it wasn't technically appropriate. Another is the use of metaphor. E.g. "discover" used to mean "to remove the cover of", but now its meaning is purely metaphorical and the literal meaning has been mostly lost. Another is laziness:…
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The W is called "double-u" because it dates from the era when U and V were the same letter (the consonant and vowel versions diverged) and there was no W letter, but only a doubled-U. The phrase, "I want a veal sandwich on Tuesday" would have been spelled, "I uuant a ueal sanduuich on Tuesday" (or, alternatively, "I vvant a veal sandvvich on Tvesday"). This is also why u, v, and w are consecutive in the alphabet. Thi…
The historical use of u and v can be seen in the Lord's Prayer from 1538: > Our father whiche art in heuen, > halowed be thy name. > Let thy kyngdome cum vnto vs. > Thy wyll be fulfylled as well in erthe, > as it is in heuen. In the first line we see how U was used within words for both U and V ('our' and 'heaven'). In the third line we see how V was used for words starting with U (as well as words starting with V).…
Another weird gray area between ligature and letter are the "æ" and "œ" characters, which are mainly used as ligatures for the British spellings of "foetus" and "encyclopaedia" but were, at some times, seen as actual letters. American spelling reforms erased this particular weirdness from our dialect.