3 ms·
The singular of “anecdote” is, in fact, “anecdote”.
by smogcutter 5y ago
The singular of “anecdote” is, in fact, “anecdote”.
- tkgally 5y agoI intended to use a singular form of “anecdata,” not of “anecdote.” See, for example, [1] and [2]. [1] https://www.macmillandictionary.com/buzzword/entries/anecdata.html https://www.macmillandictionary.com/buzzword/entries/anecdat... [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=anecdatum&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
- smogcutter 5y agoYes, hn search comes up with lots of results for obnoxious hn-isms
- helmholtz 5y agoAnecdote is the word to use here. It's a lovely word. By contrast, anecdata isn't a word at all, and has nothing to do with 'data' anyway. I have a similar pet-peeve with 'guesstimate'. It's just an estimate. It would scratch a big itch of mine if everyone just used plain words.
- chana_masala 5y agoThis is anecdotal data, and while it is not common anymore, the singular of data is datum, thus anecdatum.
- smogcutter 5y agoIt is not data. It is an anecdote.
- chana_masala 5y agoYeah that's a valid take, but I was just explaining how your correction was misunderstanding the word. A search HN comments for "anecdata" [1] yields over 4000 instances [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=anecdata&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...