Hear, hear! I'm glad to know I'm not the last grump left standing. When I raise this point every year, my students regard me with bemused stares, as though they've just seen a coelacanth swim past their window...
On 1 Apr 2012, at 10:18 AM, Gerard Bricogne wrote: > 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. > > -- > > =============================================================== > * * > * Gerard Bricogne [email protected] * > * * > * Global Phasing Ltd. * > * Sheraton House, Castle Park Tel: +44-(0)1223-353033 * > * Cambridge CB3 0AX, UK Fax: +44-(0)1223-366889 * > * * > ===============================================================
