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0 pointsfalcor842y ago0 comments

Sorry to nitpick, but I believe that "anecdata" is strictly plural and as such "one anecdata" is grammatically incorrect. It should probably be just "one anecdote", but if you want to emphasize the "data" aspect, I'd go with "one point of anecdata" or more concisely - "one anecdatum".

Somewhat surprisingly to me, "anecdatum" has apparently never yet appeared in print [0], and I'm happy for the two of us to share credit in coining it.

[0] https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=anecdatum

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3 comments · 1 top-level

TonyTrapp2y ago· 2 in thread

Anecdata is a humorous term for "anecdotal evidence", i.e. it is not real "data".

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/anecdata#Noun

numpad02y ago

I think the problem he has with the word is data is the plural(!) for singular datum. So one data is datum, two cactuses are cacti, and two datas is data. Maybe not always colloquially but technically. Hence anecdatum and anecdata.

seatsniffer2y ago

It depends on where you are. In the US it's like you say. But in the UK for example they will often use data as singular.

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