5 ms·

It's 'bacteria', not 'bacterium'

14 points by jipumarino 14y ago

Metatron 14y ago
Came in expecting a prescriptivist ranting about the roots of our language and got a fairly level-headed rant at language loons prescribing things wrongly. I enjoyed it. All living languages are subject to continual change anyhow, that's the rule that should stop people from dictating how we use the language. Language is just there for us to pass on information, in most cases of nitpicking that gets overlooked.
petercooper 14y ago
Because of the physical size of bacteria, the word became a mass noun and functions as both plural and singular. Same reason for taking "data": it is collective. I had to look this up and it's far from authoritative but Wikipedia doesn't seem to think that's entirely true for data, at least (that is, you may say "a bacteria" but you do not say "a data"): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data In English, the word datum is still used in the general sense of "an item given". [..] Any measurement or result is a datum, but data point is more usual [..] Even when a very small quantity of data is referenced (one number, for example) the phrase piece of data is often used, as opposed to datum. The debate over appropriate usage is ongoing.
pfortuny 14y ago
There is a little problem with the pedantic poster (the commenter at ars)... Bacteria comes from 'bacteria' in greek, which means 'rod' or 'stick' (walking stick). The fact that some people neolatinized and fabricated a 'bacterium' means absolutely nothing. If you want to be pedantic, say 'bacterion' and 'bacteria', but then again you would probably write it 'bakterion'. Wikipedia is not the definitive source for a lot of things, least of all this.
olympus 14y ago
I am glad that someone who knows more about language than I do can make a sophisticated sounding arguement that I can regurgitate to make myself sound smart. Who cares if it's correct or not, I can belittle a lot of people with words like these.
Sandman 14y ago
I just had to check which rules apply to some other words, like 'stadium' and 'forum'. Turns out that both 'stadiums' and 'stadia' are valid plurals of 'stadium' while 'forums' is the preferred plural of 'forum', although 'fora' is not incorrect. [1]http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stadium#Noun http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stadium#Noun [2]http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/forum#Noun http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/forum#Noun
- asveikau 14y ago
  Speaking of "stadium", that's another one of those Greek words where we go around repeating the Latinized version. It might be more properly "stadion".

14 points by jipumarino 14y ago

Came in expecting a prescriptivist ranting about the roots of our language and got a fairly level-headed rant at language loons prescribing things wrongly. I enjoyed it. All living languages are subject to continual change anyhow, that's the rule that should stop people from dictating how we use the language. Language is just there for us to pass on information, in most cases of nitpicking that gets overlooked.

petercooper 14y ago

Because of the physical size of bacteria, the word became a mass noun and functions as both plural and singular. Same reason for taking "data": it is collective. I had to look this up and it's far from authoritative but Wikipedia doesn't seem to think that's entirely true for data, at least (that is, you may say "a bacteria" but you do not say "a data"): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data In English, the word datum is still used in the general sense of "an item given". [..] Any measurement or result is a datum, but data point is more usual [..] Even when a very small quantity of data is referenced (one number, for example) the phrase piece of data is often used, as opposed to datum. The debate over appropriate usage is ongoing.

pfortuny 14y ago

There is a little problem with the pedantic poster (the commenter at ars)... Bacteria comes from 'bacteria' in greek, which means 'rod' or 'stick' (walking stick). The fact that some people neolatinized and fabricated a 'bacterium' means absolutely nothing. If you want to be pedantic, say 'bacterion' and 'bacteria', but then again you would probably write it 'bakterion'. Wikipedia is not the definitive source for a lot of things, least of all this.

olympus 14y ago

I am glad that someone who knows more about language than I do can make a sophisticated sounding arguement that I can regurgitate to make myself sound smart. Who cares if it's correct or not, I can belittle a lot of people with words like these.

Sandman 14y ago

I just had to check which rules apply to some other words, like 'stadium' and 'forum'. Turns out that both 'stadiums' and 'stadia' are valid plurals of 'stadium' while 'forums' is the preferred plural of 'forum', although 'fora' is not incorrect. [1]http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stadium#Noun http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stadium#Noun [2]http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/forum#Noun http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/forum#Noun

asveikau 14y ago
Speaking of "stadium", that's another one of those Greek words where we go around repeating the Latinized version. It might be more properly "stadion".