Another one bites the dust?

[David Bowie]

From:    Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>

> I've read and occasionally heard "datum" far more often than I've read
> or heard "criterion." In fact, in my experience, "criterion" is
> practically extinct in non-academic speech.

My sisters and i all have and use the criterion/criteria
distinction--our mother was insistent about it.

Perhaps oddly, then, i grew up with no knowledge of datum as the
singular of data (or, FTM, as a word of English at all). One of my
dissertation readers insisted that i change a singular data to datum,
and it still seems bizarre-looking to me.

--
David Bowie                               University of Central Florida
     Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the
     house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is
     chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed.

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