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Alicorn comments on Virtue Ethics for Consequentialists - Less Wrong
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I had a teacher once who liked to say "ceteris ain't paribus". Is that better or worse?
That's actually a matter where some interesting linguistic judgment might be in order.
The "ain't" part is grammatical in some dialects of English, though, as far as I know, not in any form of standard English that is officially recognized anywhere. But the wrong cases for cetera and pares are not grammatical in any form of Latin that has ever been spoken or written anywhere.
On the whole, I'd say that "ain't" is less bad, since in the dialects in which it is grammatical, it has the same form for both singular and plural. Therefore, at least it respects the number agreement with the Latin plural cetera, whereas "is" commits an additional offense by violating that agreement.
I sympathize with this logic, but I don't completely agree. Languages frequently take words from other languages and regularize them, and when this occurs, they are no longer inflected the way they were in the original language. When we use Latin phrases in English often enough, they become part of the English language. 'Ceteris' and 'paribus' are in the ablative case because they were taken from a particular Latin expression, so it's reasonable to keep them in that case when using the words in that context, even though they're not being used in exactly the same way.
Yes, that's a good point. Out of curiosity, I just searched for examples of similar usage in Google Books, and I'm struck by how often it can be found in what appear to be respectable printed materials. I guess I should accept that the phrase has been reanalyzed in English, just like it makes no sense to complain about, say, the use of caveat as a noun, or agenda as singular. (Though I still can't help but cringe at singular data, despite being well aware that it's a lost cause...)
Nitpick alert: You probably know this, but it's an important distinction that the non-plural usage of "data" not only is grammatically singular, but is also a mass noun. (People say "I have some data, you have more data", not *"I have one data, you have two data[s]".)
Virtually everyone who makes "data" grammatically plural actually uses it as a mass noun, too.
...so what's "datum", then? </sincerity>
Datum is the neuter singular of the perfect passive participle of the Latin verb dare "to give." This grammatical form is roughly analogous to the English participle "given." However, in Latin, such participles are sometimes used as standalone nouns, so that the neuter form datum by itself can mean "[that which is/has been] given." Analogously, the plural data can mean "[the things that are/have been] given."
In English, this word has been borrowed with the meaning of "information given" and variations on that theme (besides a few additional obscure technical meanings).
It's the singular that plural "data" is a plural of. Someone who strictly uses "data" as a mass noun would say "piece of data".
I think of "ain't" as either standard in some dialects, or as a tool for emphasis in standard English (usually spoken rather than written).
It seems reasonable that if you're using informal English for emphasis, then it's stylistically consistent to use the sort of colloquial mangled Latin that an English speaker who doesn't know Latin would use.
Wikipedia:
(Which is exactly how it's used in "ceteris ain't paribus". See also this post by Geoff Nunberg.)