Dear all,

I find this discussion most amazing. Here, we are dealing with the most
serious issue
that happened to Macromolecular Crystallography since the Alabama case,
and the
whole discussion is centered around singular and plural and Greek and
Latin words
and what not.

In psychology such phenomenon is referred to as displacement activity.

If you are interested, here is the MacMillon definition of it:

http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/displacement-activity

Cheers,

Manfred


On 01.04.2012 19:35, Gerard Bricogne wrote:
On Sun, Apr 01, 2012 at 01:18:15PM -0400, David Schuller wrote:
On 04/01/12 10:18, 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.
When it are plural?
      Good nit-picking :-) . In my mind the quotes around "data" would have
had the same effect as writing 'the word "data"', and referring to that word
by the 'it'. So there is only one word, while its grammatical number is
plural.


At any rate, I heard a Nobel laureate use it incorrectly just two days ago.
      We shouldn't learn to write by imitating Nobel laureates, then.


      With best wishes,

           Gerard.

--
=======================================================================
All Things Serve the Beam
=======================================================================
                                David J. Schuller
                                modern man in a post-modern world
                                MacCHESS, Cornell University
                                schul...@cornell.edu

--
Dr. Manfred. S. Weiss
Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie
Macromolecular Crystallography (HZB-MX)
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