08.27.08
Stamina R Us
When arguing with a language persnickitor who insists that the word data is always plural, mental stamina are required.
Hold on, Mr. Brohaugh, I hear some data-R-us prescriptivist saying. You should say, “stamina is required.” The word is singular.
That’s what I thought until I stumbled across a fascinating post in the Languagehat blog archives (which the “Stupid Grammar Rules II: Data Are” post at the Motivated Grammar blog pointed to). Languagehat explains that stamina is technically plural, and then concludes:
Heretofore, when encountering people who insist that data should take a plural verb, I have said “I presume, then, you feel the same about agenda“; I will now add stamina to my arsenal.
My own heretofore has rarely taken such a logical route. I like to confuse such insistent people, with a response more like “So, then, why don’t you insist on a plural verb for minutia, which is the plural of minutium?” I love the moment of quiet, the eyes darting back and forth. It’s a test of mettle—or mental stamins, maybe. The response is going to be a) silence; b) “I do use plural verbs with minutia“; c) “You’re full of shit.”
Answer a) speaks to the confusion caused by such Latin words as datum/data, stadium/stadia, graffito/graffiti, and balonum/baloney (well, maybe not the last pair). Answer b) speaks to the “depth” of their knowledge of Latin words, because . . . Answer c) is correct. Minutia is indeed singular, and minutium exists only in my mind as a contender for being the singular of baloney.
, 
and 
. Feel free to 
JohnnyB said,
August 27, 2008 at 9:54 am
You is a smart guy.
Patrick Henry said,
October 9, 2008 at 6:05 am
My response is:
“Oh, you weren’t aware that Classical Greek commonly (if not normally) used the singular verb with neuter plural nouns? Funny, isn’t it? I’ve spent so much time in Rhodes brushing up on my rhetoric I’ve gone and forgotten all my Latin… have adopted all these Graecisms… Back to the singular verb with the neuter plural, it makes sense when you think about it: the speaker conceives of the bunch of things as actually being one big, collective thing… particularly when there’s been a meaning shift in the meantime, as is especially noteable in “agenda”… blah blah blah…”
Everything You Know About English Is Wrong » Data Arrrrgh said,
October 19, 2008 at 8:29 pm
[...] I’ve babbled about this before, of course, but let’s now move on and get back to that group noun couple: datum sounds like an activity the couple is engaged in. “We’re not serious. We’re just datum.” (And I’m not serious, either.) [...]