Illinois State University's NPR station, WGLT, ran a story containing this sentence: "How can consumers of news determine which media outlets are legitimate and which are political commentary masquerading as news?"

Is "media" now officially and irrevocably singular? Why say "...media outlets..." instead of simply "media?" Isn't "outlets" redundant? Is there no longer such a thing as a news medium? Is it now "a news media?" AAARRRRGHGHGHGH!!!

I think media is ok here. After all medium outlets has an entirely different meaning. Outlets at first glance looks wrong but arguably media refers to newspapers, tv, radio, internet etc while media outlets would be The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Fox News and so on.

More of my ranting about plurals, this time from NPR: "Plastics is among the most energy-intensive materials to produce," Muffett says.

Now that one we can agree on

It is a very good question, though. How can you determine that? I get so mad at the Chicago Tribune medium outlet sometimes because even their supposed objective reporters take a side in some stories where you know the editors have an agenda.

As for your media vs. medium question, I use it the right way (I think), but I have to admit sometimes it sounds a bit awkward to say "media are." I feel the same way about data vs. datum. I use them right, but feel pretentious sometimes.

You have to realise that word usages change. Sure, datum used to be one item of many data but that's not the correct moderm usage. If 99% of the English speakers say "The data is clear" then I'd say they are right. I have only ever heard datum from people intending to sound pretentious (or, I am thinking of some specific people here - not you, Kalleh) by people who insist that language has going to hell in a handbasket and that anyone who fails to speak as people spoke a hundred years ago is an imbecile. In modern usage data is an uncountable noun like traffic or cheese* and therefore takes the singular verb. Nobody says "I have six data", they say "I have some data". Uncountable.

What about die and dice? Do you use those "correctly"?


(*Yes, thanks. I do know that when it is used to mean "type of cheese", cheese can be plural.)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

quote:

(or, I am thinking of some specific people here - not you, Kalleh)

Hmmm, are his initials RE?

I do say "one die." I guess that is pretty pretentious, right?

When I publish research, editors will never let me get away with the "current modern usage" of data. It must be, "data are."

quote:

Originally posted by BobHale:


What about die and dice? Do you use those "correctly"?

OK, I give up. The dice is cast.

There are plenty of fossil phrases in English where an older form of a word suggests gives in a single phrase or a small group of phrases. We “eke” something out, we talk of “wrack and ruin”, someone can be “hoist by his own petard” but outside those set phrases the words are rarely, if ever, seen. “The die is cast “ is one such phrase.

Geoff, do you think it is different here in the U.S.? If I play a game with others that has dice, if we have to use one, it's always called a "die," right? Maybe I just play with pretentious people?

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
... it's always called a "die," right? Maybe I just play with pretentious people?

You run with a more educated crowd than I do. I've not heard anyone say "die" in years.

Maybe it's because they are talking about more than one. Isn't just one always called a die? It would sound weird to me to call it a dice.

Whereas over here I have very rarely heard “die”, and then only from a very specific breed of pedant. Incidentally, on another old a favorite, a radio presenter that I listen to a lot has recently taken to “correcting” himself when he uses momentarily to mean “in a moment” because members of that same breed of pedant have written to him to complain.