one datum many data? [was Re: [ccp4bb] very informative - Trends in Data Fabrication]

From: Paul Emsley
Date: 1 April 2012 13:05
The PDBe page for 3k78 says:

"The experimental data has been deposited"

the data cif file says:

"data is under question"

Grump.

Is it to late to refer to data as if there were more than one of them?

Anyway, the data mtz file is here if you want to refine with it:

http://lmb.bioch.ox.ac.uk/emsley/data/r3k78sf.mtz

Paul.

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From: Gerard Bricogne
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. Related
instances are

        * a phenomenon (singular) vs. several phenomena (plural),

        * a criterion (singular) vs. several criteria (plural)

and many more.

    And then there is the infamous mix-up between "principal" (adjective)
and "principle" (noun, as in Principle of Least Action, or Peter's
Principle) giving rise to the favourite hero, the "Principle Investigator".

    This phenomena is now so widespread that perhaps compliance with
ancient Greek or Latin morphology is no longer a relevant criteria ;-) .


    With best wishes,

         Gerard.

--

--

     
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From: George T. DeTitta
Perhaps the world could use a few more principle investigators?

A Buffalo view
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

-

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From: Adrian Goldman
You can find all the principle investigators you want collecting datums ;) at the ESRF,  as that is how the French spell it on the application form for beam time!  (Unless it has _finally_ been corrected: haven't checked since I submitted my last BAG application in April.)

                                                       Adrian

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From: Patrick Loll
Hear, hear! I'm glad to know I'm not the last grump left standing. When I raise this point every year, my students regard me with bemused stares, as though they've just seen a coelacanth swim past their window...

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From: VAN RAAIJ , MARK JOHAN
another singular/plural grump:
Recently we can read: "phage are".
Phage is singular, the plural is phages (and this does not have that much to do with latin or greek).
more reading:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3109450/

Mark J van Raaij

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From: Antony Oliver

Think the jury might be out on this one... A quick snip from WikiDictionary...

"The plural word phages refers to different types of phage, whereas in common usage the word phage can be both singular and plural, referring in the plural sense to particles of the same type of phage." Maloy et al: Microbial Genetics, 2nd ed., 1984

Tony. 

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Mobile Account

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From: Gerard DVD Kleywegt

Is it to late to refer to data as if there were more than one of them?

Is it too late to explain the difference between "to" and "too"?

--A much mellowed CD

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From: David Schuller

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?
At any rate, I heard a Nobel laureate use it incorrectly just two days ago.

--

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From: Gerard Bricogne

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.

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From: Phoebe Rice
Ah, an old pet peeve resurfaces!

English is complicated and "data" is by now an English word.

To use a somewhat strained analogy, at the quantum level, the word has a
singular and a plural form, and at the classical-mechanics level, the word is a
mass noun.

Most crystallographers use the word "data" as a mass noun - that is, the syntax
of "data" follows that of "gravel" or "mud", not that of "pebble/pebbles".  People
who pounce on the phrase "data is" routinely say "data collection" and "data
processing".  But note that the proper way to construct compound nouns such as
those is to use the singular form - one would never say "rocks collection" or
"apples picking".  So if we have to say "data are" then we should be discussing
how (not) to fabricate a "datum set".  Also note that when people come back
from the synchrotron, we ask "how much data did you collect" not "how many".
"Much" is generally used with mass nouns.

That doesn't mean we can't ALSO use the word as one with discrete singular and
plural forms, especially when we have a few, individual observations rather than
a huge pile that blurs into an aggregate.  In that case, I see nothing incorrect
about discussing an individual datum and using "data" as the plural form.

Sometimes it is the artificial, over-simplified rule that is stupid, not the native
speakers of a language.

=====================================
Phoebe A. Rice

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From: Bosch, Juergen

Grumpy old men :-)

I feel hijacked or is hijacketed ?

Don't we all speak and write perfect BE (not as in British English, but more like Bad English) ?

May the impact factor for TiDF continue to be very low.

Jürgen

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From: Klaus Fütterer
Phoebe,

Thank you for this eloquent contribution to the LEP4 BB.
(LEP as in language education project).

:-)

Klaus

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From: Manfred S. Weiss
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

--



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From: Antony Oliver
To my mind it just points to the fact that many scientists are generally
unable to focus on one task or 'thing' at a time.
i.e. very short attention spans...

[before the flamer's start ‹ this is meant as a joke]

Tony.

---
Dr Antony W Oliver

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From: John R Helliwell
Dear Colleagues,
This is a further instance of likely scientific fraud in
macromolecular crystallography, ie under formal investigation at the
relevant university.

Both Bernhard and the Acta D and F Editors further document aspects in
their written pieces related to the need for diffraction data images
availability. The call for a 'universal system' by the  Editors, in
their Editorial, is also what the IUCr Forum on these matters has also
been discussing. A possible convergence on local raw data
repositories, with each data set doi registered where it underpins a
publication, detailed by the IUCr DDD WG thus far, is unlikely to be
'universal' in its global coverage. But setting standards by
encouraging raw data archives in our field will afford a much needed
clarity in favour of retaining raw data wherever possible. A separate
issue will be, in my view, the certain expansion of current validation
checks. Indeed it is the standard practice in chemical crystallography
submissions to IUCr journals for Co-Editors to validate the structure
determination and refinement, including omit map calculations where
appropriate. Of course this is most often a much easier task in
chemical crystallography, per crystal structure checked, than would be
the case for macromolecular crystallography.

Again I encourage colleagues to lodge their inputs at the IUCr Forum
on any aspect of principle or practice in achieving diffraction raw
data archiving.

Best wishes,
John

John R Helliwell

--
Professor John R Helliwell DSc

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From: Gerard Bricogne
Dear Manfred,

    I understand your surprise and indignation, but for the sake of
fairness you might also remember that I argued rather insistently at the end
of last year in favour of the deposition of raw diffraction images, which is
the crux of this problem.

    With best wishes,

         Gerard.

--

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From: Boaz Shaanan <
OK, following on our psychological displacement:

The examples Pheobe gave are mostly of collective nouns

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_noun

to be distinguished from mass nouns:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_noun

Strictly speaking, data is not a collective noun and is the plural of datum. Use of singular form is accepted nowadays but it doesn't mean that it's correct. To quote Merriam-webster: ..."Data leads its own life independent of datum"...
See:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/data

And by the way, what do you answer to "how much data did you collect"? A lot? just a little?
Had we asked: "how complete is your data"? "how many frames did you collect"? "How many data sets"? wouldn't we have got a much more informative answer?

             Boaz

Most crystallographers use the word "data" as a mass noun - that is, the syntax
of "data" follows that of "gravel" or "mud", not that of "pebble/pebbles".  People
who pounce on the phrase "data is" routinely say "data collection" and "data
processing".  But note that the proper way to construct compound nouns such as
those is to use the singular form - one would never say "rocks collection" or
"apples picking".  So if we have to say "data are" then we should be discussing
how (not) to fabricate a "datum set".  Also note that when people come back
from the synchrotron, we ask "how much data did you collect" not "how many".
"Much" is generally used with mass nouns.

That doesn't mean we can't ALSO use the word as one with discrete singular and
plural forms, especially when we have a few, individual observations rather than
a huge pile that blurs into an aggregate.  In that case, I see nothing incorrect
about discussing an individual datum and using "data" as the plural form.

Sometimes it is the artificial, over-simplified rule that is stupid, not the native
speakers of a language.

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From: Gerard DVD Kleywegt
Dear Manfred,

Outside Germany, such excursions are called "humour". If you are interested, here is the Wikipedia page for it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humour

--Gerard

PS: It was on a Sunday so all levity was perpetrated in people's own time. Today we'll all be serious again and frown and tut-tut appropriately.

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From: Bernhard Rupp (Hofkristallrat a.D.)
Guys,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CobZuaPMQHw

second 9 in this 22 sec video ....

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From: Francis E Reyes
I'm now preparing for the flood of 'unsubscribe ccp4bb' requests....

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From: Andreas Förster
Dear Gerard,

inside Germany it's apparently called "German Humour".  There's a Wikipedia entry for that as well.  Go figure:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_humor


Andreas

(still living on Sunday time)

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From: Gerard DVD Kleywegt
Dear Andreas,

That page confirms the old adage: "German humour is no laughing matter".

--Gerard

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From: George T. DeTitta
And please consider the date of Sunday's posts.

We take this stuff seriously. That's what's nice about science. We ferret out mischief and bring it to the public. Nothing up my sleeve - all tricks will be exposed and dealt with harshly

A Buffalo view.

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

-----Original Message-----

From: Gerard DVD Kleywegt
Sender: CCP4 bulletin board 

Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2012 17:03:42
To:
Reply-To: Gerard DVD Kleywegt
Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] one datum many data? [was Re: [ccp4bb] very informative - Trends in Data Fabrication]

Dear Manfred,

Outside Germany, such excursions are called "humour". If you are interested,

here is the Wikipedia page for it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humour

--Gerard

PS: It was on a Sunday so all levity was perpetrated in people's own time.
Today we'll all be serious again and frown and tut-tut appropriately.

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From: Bosch, Juergen

Hm, last I checked my passport said German - still think I can make lots of fun of myself. Some Germans are epigenetically marked with humor-suppressor genes others not.

Jürgen

......................
Jürgen Bosch

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From: Kendall Nettles

My favorite part of the german humor link:

"Some German humorists such as Loriot use seriousness as means of humor."

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From: Jacob Keller
Sorry to beat a dead horse, but:

• Antiwitz (anti-joke): A short, often absurd scene, which has the recognizable structure of a joke, but is illogical or lacking a punch-line.

Example: Two thick feet are crossing the street. Says one thick foot to the other thick foot: "Hello!"

Other examples: "Nachts ist es kälter als draußen" (At night it's colder than outside) or "Zu Fuß ist es kürzer als über'n Berg" ("Walking is faster than over the mountain").

-- 

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From: Tim Gruene

And the summary indicates that "outside Germany = English speaking
world"  - which probably unveals its author as American ;-)

- --
- --
Dr Tim Gruene

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From: Andreas Förster
That's pretty funny, isn't it?


Andreas

On 02/04/2012 6:52, Jacob Keller wrote:

Sorry to beat a dead horse, but:

 * *Antiwitz* (/anti-joke/): A short, often absurd scene, which has the

   recognizable structure of a joke, but is illogical or lacking a
   punch-line.

   Example: /Two thick feet are crossing the street. Says one thick
   foot to the other thick foot: "Hello!"/

   Other examples: "Nachts ist es kälter als draußen" (At night it's
   colder than outside) or "Zu Fuß ist es kürzer als über'n Berg"
   ("Walking is faster than over the mountain").