STAR TS Translation Services Blog

STAR’s Monday Question : Is it “Data” or “Datum”?

Data comes from Latin. It used to be considered as a collective singular noun. In formal documents for scientific or scholarly writing data is mostly used as a plural and datum is the singular form. When you choose one or the other check that the nouns and verbs tally with the selected form.

Yet, for non-scientific use data is nowadays commonly used as a singular noun. So it is acceptable to write a sentence like: “STAR’s Translation’s data was available on its website”.

Definition

“data n, pl. 1 Facts on which a decision is to be based. 2 Facts to be processed by computer.
datum n. (pl. data) item of data”
Reference: Oxford Quick Reference Dictionary and Thesaurus – Oxford University Press

In addition, here are a few more words whose the plural form don’t ends in -s.

Plural >>>>>>>Singular

Bacteria                   Bacterium

Dice                           Die

Formulae                Formula

Graffiti                      Graffito

Candelabra            Candelabrum

Data                          Datum

Media                       Medium

Opera                       Opius

Paparazzi                Paparazzo

Men                          Man

Women                   Woman

By STAR Translation Services

Pluralizing words isn’t always a simple matter of adding an s on the end, and switching a word from masculine form to feminine form isn’t always a matter of adding -ess.

• The words alms, amends, cattle, clothes, doldrums, ides, pants, pliers, scissors, shorts, smithereens, and trousers are all plural but have no singular form.

Many words are both singular and plural.  Here are a few: Scissors, Species, you, pants, deer, moose, and sheep, are spelled and pronounced the same way in both their singular and plural forms.    Example: “There stands a sheep” and plural as in, “Look at that flock of sheep.”  More interesting words with this property are congeries, kudos, premises, shambles, series, and species. Fish can be both singular and plural, yet fishes is also a correct pluralization of the word.

• The words bourgeois, chassis, corps, faux pas, gardebras, précis, pince-nez, and rendezvous all have plurals spelled the same way but pronounced differently.

Can you name a word that’s always plural?

(Answer at the bottom of post)

• Ability VS Capacity

Ability is something you can acquire, whereas capacity is something you were born with, which cannot be learned.

Capacity is also used to refer to the volume of something (e.g a room or a box).

• Complement VS Supplement

A complement is something used to complement something else, to give it something more to improve it.

Supplement is also used to complement something, but rather to supply its deficiency, make it up.

• Rare VS Scarce

Heedful writers would use rare to describe an item that’s distinctive or unusual, and use scarce to refer to something that is hard to find.

However, most dictionaries now list rare as a synonym for scarce.

Answer : Trivia.

Which English plural word is changed to a singular word when you add an ‘s’ ?
Answer at the bottom of post.

Whilst you are thinking about this little puzzle you might like to consider the correct usage of Less and Fewer, Amount and Number

These words cause problems for many native speakers of English.

The incorrect usage can be seen everywhere, from car advertisements to supermarkets. A classic example would be the “10 items or less” signs in supermarkets, which should read “10 items or fewer” or better still “Fewer than 10 items”.

How do you know which to use? Here is a simple explanation.

Less:
The word “less” is used for items that cannot easily be counted: “We have less milk than we thought”; “The balloon contains less air than yesterday”; “The cleaning took less time than I expected”. These things can be measured, but not counted as such.

Fewer:
“Fewer” is for things that can be counted: “The milkman delivered fewer bottles of milk than we requested”; “There are fewer balloons now than yesterday as some have burst”; “I have to clean fewer rooms now that I live in a smaller house”.

The words “amount” and “number” work in exactly the same way.

Amount:
“Amount” is used for items that can’t be counted e.g “He tries to eat only a small amount of cheese”;”He bought a huge amount of food for the party”; “She only spends a small amount of money on cleaning products” .

Number:
“Number” is for things that can be counted: “She works with a large number of cheese makers”; “He invited a small number of people to his birthday”; “She prefers not to use a large number of cleaning products.”

Answer:
Princes, the plural of prince. When you add an ‘s’ it becomes princess, a singular word.