Re: Adopting a plural
| From: | Philip Newton <philip.newton@...> |
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| Date: | Thursday, October 7, 2004, 19:54 |
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On Wed, 6 Oct 2004 19:48:46 +0100, Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:
> But 'agendae' - ach y fi! A plural of a plural! How long before
> we meet "datae"?
Or "omnibi"?
On Thu, 7 Oct 2004 19:25:55 +0100, Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:
> Groan!! I remember when we had 'datum' with it plural 'data'.
In German, we have "Datum" with two meanings: the generic meaning, as
in English (an item, a piece of information), which is rare, and a
specific one: date (the day on which something takes place), which is
very common.
In my company, the word is occasionally pluralised as *Datümer in the
second sense (using the common but IMO not productive plural "-er),
since the regular plural Daten nearly always refers to "data".
*Datümer is, strictly speaking, wrong, but the distinction is useful,
especially since computer programmers have to deal not only with dates
but also with data frequently.
Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
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