Plural pedantry (was Re: [plug] stripping potentially nasty attachments)

[Bret Busby]

On Sat, 27 Mar 2004, James Devenish wrote:

> 
> In message <20040327091459.GC7528 at patrick.wattle.id.au>
> on Sat, Mar 27, 2004 at 05:14:59PM +0800, Cameron Patrick wrote:
> > Heard someone the other day talking about "a minima".  Urgh!
> 
> "A phenomena" and "a bacteria" are particularly popular on...TV (gasp).
> My personal favourite is a little slip-of-the-tongue that mathematicians
> and engineers might recognise: "a matricie" ;-) Another cringeworthy
> example is RedHat's "this errata".
> 
> > Though I suppose it's the same as what's happened to datum/data.
> 
> I love how a "datum" is supposed to be superseded by "data point".
> 
> PS. Don't forget our little problem with 'their'.
> 
> 

Speaking of what is said on TV, and, as you mention "their", one thing 
that is amazing, and shows a general lacking in education (did any of 
these people get through primary school, or, have primary schools 
just been a waste of time, here?), is the abuse of the word "is"; "There 
is too many of them"..."There is five of them"....etc. Generally, in the 
media, whether the speaker is a journalist or a politician, where the 
case is plural, the word "is", is used. It is rare, that the word "is", 
is limited to singularity

Apparently, in Australian schools (the problem is prevalent, through 
most sections of society, not just uneducated journalists or 
uneducated politicians), students are not taught that the word "is", is 
singular", and, the word "are", is the plural equivalent.

But, then, maori is more fun, as, in maori, there are three cases - 
singular, dual, and plural; eg, koe - you, singular, korua - you (for 
you two people), and, koutou - you, plural. And, then, to make it even 
more complicated, there is another form, for plural, many (like a crowd) 
- for example, the greeting to a crowd of people; "Tena koutou, tena 
koutou, tena koutou, katoa" - "Greetings to you (plural), greetings to 
you (plural), greetings to you (plural), all".

-- 
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............

"So once you do know what the question actually is,
 you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
  Chapter 28 of 
  "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
  A Trilogy In Four Parts",
  written by Douglas Adams, 
  published by Pan Books, 1992 
....................................................