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Subject:Latin singular and plurals in English mediums <g> From:"T. Word Smith" <techwordsmith -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 20 Apr 2004 09:21:59 -0700 (PDT)
Data, media, agenda, criteria, forums ... language
evolves. If you're writing in academia, use the Latin.
If your audience is more plebian, use the English. If
you're writing in France ... uuuuum, use French.
I find it hard to believe that using "criteria" as a
singular would undermine the credibility of an entire
document.
--- John Posada <JPosada -at- isogon -dot- com> wrote:
> Regarding this criterion/criteria issue. I'm going
> to get lots of flack
> on this, but even though I know the difference, I'll
> probably stay with
> criteria because criterion, in today's environment,
> "sounds" wrong. I
> think the majority of typical readers (those on this
> list are not
> typical) don't know the difference and using
> criterion is distracting.
>
> http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=criteria
> "Usage Note: Like the analogous etymological plurals
> agenda and data,
> criteria is widely used as a singular form. Unlike
> them, however, it is
> not yet acceptable in that use."
=====
T.
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