I love Frasier. I was watching a rerun tonight, and Frasier was upset because there was a limerick in the bathroom making fun of his being a "snob." He called it a graffito. I'd not heard the singular of graffiti before, but of course Frazier would know it. Have you heard it used that way?

I guess not.

I had not heard of Frasier. Did you mean this?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frazer_(automobile)

As for graffitio, I think that's a Freudian slip.

In Italian graffiti is the plural of graffito “scratch”.

In the English of most North Americans today (outside of art history and archeology) I’m willing to bet that graffiti is a noncount noun.

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Staff came in one morning at the local zoo and found messages spray-painted on many animals. The worst was the giraffiti.

quote:

Originally posted by goofy:

In the English of most North Americans today (outside of art history and archeology) I’m willing to bet that graffiti is a noncount noun.

Like data and media?

That reminds me of the Italian vampire opthalmologist: Count Macula. And his Dalmation dog was named Spot.

quote:

Originally posted by Geoff:
Like data and media?

They’re not quite the same. Noncount nouns are singular and can be proceded by “some” but cannot be proceded by “a” or numbers.
That’s some dope graffiti.
*That’s a dope graffiti.
Her latest graffiti is dope.
*Her latest 2 graffiti are dope.

On the other hand I could be wrong, in this quote from the OED it is plural:

1964 A. Ginsberg Let. 30 Sept. (2008) 299 The message ‘fuck the Jews’ was not the only message I left scrawled on Livingston Hall window... I think later commentators on these esoteric graffiti have entirely misunderstood the intention.

Data is noncount, outside of contexts where it is plural.
Here’s some relevant data.
*Here is one relevant data.

But media is different.
The news media is the enemy of the American people.
?Some news media is the enemy of the American people.
It’s a count noun in these quotes from the OED:
1927 Amer. Speech 3 26 One of the best advertising medias in the middle west.
1982 Times 7 Sept. 4/6 ‘It is important to realise the essential quality of democracy relies on a democratically controlled media,’ he added.

I know we hate to say what's "right" or "wrong" here, so I won't. However, while "data" and "media" are often used as singulars, I do think they "should" be used as plurals. It's just that they've become acceptable as singulars, similar to "agenda." Presumably the same is true for "graffiti."

And, by the way, our editors go nuts if "data" are ever used as a singular.

If I ever said that it was wrong to say something was right or wrong, then maybe I was wrong. Logically you can’t get from “is” to “ought”, so a statement like “everyone uses data as a singular noncount noun, therefore it is right” is flawed. “Right” and “wrong” opinions, not facts. I don’t want to discourage people from expressing opinions and I’m sorry if I did so.

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I agree with Kalleh, but must give up the fight. If language didn't change we'd all be speaking - uh - proto-indo-European. Well, maybe not, since that's suppositional, and it likely varied too.

Hmmmmm... I wonder what they spoke when all our ancestors were still in Africa?

quote:

I wonder what they spoke when all our ancestors were still in Africa?

Indo-Africanus?

I still use "datum" (and "stratum") when I mean just one. And I don't think Macluhan idly chose to call his work "The Medium is the Message" rather than "The Media is the Message," or even "The Media are the Message."

Yeah but McLuhan said a lot of nonsense. I mean “By phonemic trans-formation into visual terms, the alphabet became a universal, abstract, static container of meaningless sounds” and “TV is not visual, it is an audible, tactile mode of resonance”?

In engineering and architecture one still sees "datum point" or "datum line."

I was confused by the android in Star Trek being called "Data." Did he have multiple personality disorder?

In Brooklyn, is "Datum" da opposable digit?

Would datum be just for one number then? I can almost never think of a time I'd use datum.

Agendum is another story...