Perhaps the world could use a few more principle investigators?
A Buffalo view
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-----Original Message-----
From: Gerard Bricogne <g...@globalphasing.com>
Sender: CCP4 bulletin board <CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK>
Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2012 15:18:15
To: <CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK>
Reply-To: Gerard Bricogne <g...@globalphasing.com>
Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] one datum many data? [was Re: [ccp4bb] very informative -
Trends in Data Fabrication]
Dear Paul,
May I join the mostly silent chorus of Greek/Latin-aware grumps who
wince when seeing "data" treated as singular when it is plural. Related
instances are
* a phenomenon (singular) vs. several phenomena (plural),
* a criterion (singular) vs. several criteria (plural)
and many more.
And then there is the infamous mix-up between "principal" (adjective)
and "principle" (noun, as in Principle of Least Action, or Peter's
Principle) giving rise to the favourite hero, the "Principle Investigator".
This phenomena is now so widespread that perhaps compliance with
ancient Greek or Latin morphology is no longer a relevant criteria ;-) .
With best wishes,
Gerard.
--
On Sun, Apr 01, 2012 at 01:05:10PM +0100, Paul Emsley wrote:
> The PDBe page for 3k78 says:
>
> "The experimental data has been deposited"
>
> the data cif file says:
>
> "data is under question"
>
> Grump.
>
> Is it to late to refer to data as if there were more than one of them?
>
> Anyway, the data mtz file is here if you want to refine with it:
>
> http://lmb.bioch.ox.ac.uk/emsley/data/r3k78sf.mtz
>
> Paul.
--
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