search

OpenTreeOfLife / opentree

Opentree browsing and curation web site. For overarching or cross-repo concerns, please see the 'germinator' repo.
http://tree.opentreeoflife.org/
BSD 2-Clause "Simplified" License
107 stars 26 forks source link

Curator: data as singular? #1020

Closed josephwb closed 8 years ago

josephwb commented 8 years ago

screenshot from 2016-08-12 12 02 43

Can we change this to: "Data for this study are archived..."

jimallman commented 8 years ago

Just google 'data singular or plural' to see the arguments for both sides. This link highlights a useful distinction between 'count nouns' (e.g. apples) and 'mass nouns' (e.g. information, butter) composed of stuff that's not readily countable. Maybe this is a useful guide.

Of course that can be trumped by convention, if 'data' is consistently treated as plural in scientific writing. I've seen some evidence for this, but it appears actual usage is mixed.

josephwb commented 8 years ago

I am aware of the issue, but hold strongly that 'data' is plural. Happy to be overruled; just one of my :cat: :dog: :bird: :snake: :snail: peeves.

jar398 commented 8 years ago

I used to be totally with you, until I started reading Language Log (a blog written by a small collective of linguists). E.g.

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4396 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=14970

I haven't made the switch from "the agenda are" to "the agenda is", however.

On Fri, Aug 12, 2016 at 1:19 PM, Joseph W. Brown notifications@github.com wrote:

I am aware of the issue, but hold strongly that 'data' is plural. Happy to be overruled; just one of my 🐱 🐶 🐦 🐍 🐌 peeves.

— You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/OpenTreeOfLife/opentree/issues/1020#issuecomment-239506214, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AB8Qkg4VcSkeiAmQwBQCZMNgtiH9nKYmks5qfKsMgaJpZM4JjOgu .

josephwb commented 8 years ago

Ok, I was counting on you to 1) be the only one who cared about this and 2) might agree with me. Since you do not agree, and have read far more on the topic than I, I'll consider myself overruled.

jar398 commented 8 years ago

More worrying to me is the use of "data" to refer to information that is inferred. Data is (are) supposed to come from a sensor or measuring device with relatively little interpretation or processing. It is "given" to us by nature, not generated by our minds or computers. Once there is processing, we have a calculation, interpretation, hypothesis, summary, etc., not data. I personally would not describe the output of a phylogeny reconstruction algorithm as "data". But if the phylogenetics community uses the word "data" in this other sense, maybe we should go with the flow.