Sentence of the Week #14

[From Michelle Yeoman and Barbara Gastel:]

Editing Solution: Last Week’s Sentence

Welcome to the 14th installment in this series. As a reminder, below is Sentence of the Week #13:

Unfortunately, their data does not support their conclusions.

The problem in this sentence is the verb does, which should be do. Thus, the corrected version reads as follows:

Unfortunately, their data do not support their conclusions.

The sentence has an error in subject-verb agreement. Data is the plural form of datum. When a noun is plural, the verb also should be in the plural form. The plural form of the verb does is do. Thus, do is correct.

Because data doesn’t end in -s or -es, as plurals in English usually do, many people aren’t aware that it is plural. Data is an irregular plural. Other irregular plurals include criteria (the plural of criterion) and phenomena (the plural of phenomenon).

As stated in one of the comments received, some authorities now consider it acceptable to use data as a singular. Different publication sites seem to have different preferences in this regard. If feasible, it can be useful to check what your target publication does in this regard.

And now, onward to this week’s sentence.

Sentence of the Week #14:

The sentence below has 1 definite error:

Crohn’s disease, an autoimmune disorder usually affects the intestines.

Please correct the error, and submit the corrected sentence and any remarks as a comment on this post. We plan to post and discuss the solution next week.

Do you have a sentence that you would like us to consider using as the Sentence of the Week? Please e-mail submissions to Michelle at msyeoman@gmail.com with the subject line “Sentence of the Week”. Submissions should be your own work—don’t nominate a colleague’s writing :). 

Please also feel free to e-mail suggestions relating to this series.