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Posted by Toby A Inkster on 05/08/07 15:54
klenwell wrote:
> The -> indicates that the variable in question is an object with
> datums representing a property of the object.
And "datums" is an anglicised plural of "datum" which is a Latin word
meaning "something that has been given". The normal Latin plural of "datum"
is more familiar: "data".
Because of its Latin root, the pedantic will insist that the word "data"
in English ought to be treated as a plural. That is, not "The data shows
us that blah...", but rather "the data show us that blah...". Many
pragmatists however argue that "data" has become a (singular) collective
noun in English (much like "flock" or "bunch") and should take the
singular form.
--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
http://tobyinkster.co.uk/
Geek of ~ HTML/SQL/Perl/PHP/Python/Apache/Linux/Linguistics
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