Of all the grammar concepts we have, "plural" seems to be one of the most straightforward. You got one thing? It's singular. Got more than one thing? It's plural. But alas, language is always less ...

The word data leaves some of us in a conundrum. Data is the plural of datum, the Latin word for something given. Ordinarily, the plural word would get a plural verb. The chickens are on their nests.

For more than a millennium after the fall of Rome, educated Europeans were distinguished by their knowledge of Latin. One of the three subjects of the trivium—the basic tier of a classical education, ...