[okfn-help] Open Data Manual - conventions to follow, suggestions welcome

Mon May 23 23:33:47 UTC 2011

On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 10:25:37AM +0100, David Read wrote:
> On 21 May 2011 10:34, Tim McNamara <paperless at timmcnamara.co.nz> wrote:
> > Hi all, I would like to follow the following conventions for the manual:
> >  - data are, rather than data is

Cleaner, IMO.

> "Guardian style guru David Marsh ... says:
> It's like agenda, a Latin plural that is now almost universally used
> as a singular. 

Watch out for gerund(ive)s, though.

> Technically the singular is datum/agendum, but we feel
> it sounds increasingly hyper-correct, old-fashioned and pompous to say
> "the data are".
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/jul/16/data-plural-singular

q.v. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/styleguide/d> though, 

    data
    takes a singular verb (like agenda), though strictly a plural; no
    one ever uses "agendum" or "datum"

 -- I think the Style Guide linked to is more recent than 2010-vii

[ discl: I'm a Guardianista in my day-job. ]

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