Does/should one say "the degrees of freedom is defined to be" or "the degrees of freedom are defined to be"? Although value of "degrees of freedom" is a single number, the first formulation sounds very odd to my ear. I would like to call upon the collective wisdom of the R community to help me decide. Thanks, and my apologies for the off-topic post. cheers, Rolf Turner -- Technical Editor ANZJS Department of Statistics University of Auckland Phone: +64-9-373-7599 ext. 88276
On 24/06/2018 5:46 PM, Rolf Turner wrote:> > Does/should one say "the degrees of freedom is defined to be" or "the > degrees of freedom are defined to be"? > > Although value of "degrees of freedom" is a single number, the first > formulation sounds very odd to my ear. > > I would like to call upon the collective wisdom of the R community to > help me decide. > > Thanks, and my apologies for the off-topic post.I'd agree with you: "are". Duncan Murdoch
On Sun, 24 Jun 2018 at 14:46, Rolf Turner <r.turner at auckland.ac.nz> wrote:> > > Does/should one say "the degrees of freedom is defined to be" or "the > degrees of freedom are defined to be"?"are", the noun in your statement is "degrees", while the fragment "of freedom" acts as an adjective, narrowing the scope of the term "degrees". Hope that helps... -- H -- OpenPGP: https://sks-keyservers.net/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xFEBAD7FFD041BBA1 If you wish to request my time, please do so using bit.ly/hd1AppointmentRequest. Si vous voudrais faire connnaisance, allez a bit.ly/hd1AppointmentRequest. Sent from my mobile device Envoye de mon portable
I would use "the number of degrees of freedom is defined... ". Peter On Sun, Jun 24, 2018 at 2:46 PM Rolf Turner <r.turner at auckland.ac.nz> wrote:> > > Does/should one say "the degrees of freedom is defined to be" or "the > degrees of freedom are defined to be"? > > Although value of "degrees of freedom" is a single number, the first > formulation sounds very odd to my ear. > > I would like to call upon the collective wisdom of the R community to > help me decide. > > Thanks, and my apologies for the off-topic post. > > cheers, > > Rolf Turner > > -- > Technical Editor ANZJS > Department of Statistics > University of Auckland > Phone: +64-9-373-7599 ext. 88276 > > ______________________________________________ > R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
(I suspect there will be much disagreement about "is" vs. "are".) I'd say something like "the parameter degrees of freedom is defined to be ..." ---JRG On 06/24/2018 05:46 PM, Rolf Turner wrote:> > Does/should one say "the degrees of freedom is defined to be" or "the > degrees of freedom are defined to be"? > > Although value of "degrees of freedom" is a single number, the first > formulation sounds very odd to my ear. > > I would like to call upon the collective wisdom of the R community to > help me decide. > > Thanks, and my apologies for the off-topic post. > > cheers, > > Rolf Turner >
On Mon, 2018-06-25 at 09:46 +1200, Rolf Turner wrote:> Does/should one say "the degrees of freedom is defined to be" or "the > degrees of freedom are defined to be"? > > Although value of "degrees of freedom" is a single number, the first > formulation sounds very odd to my ear. > > I would like to call upon the collective wisdom of the R community to > help me decide. > > Thanks, and my apologies for the off-topic post. > > cheers, > Rolf TurnerInteresting question, Rolf!>From my point of view. I see "degrees of freedon" as a plural noun,because of "degrees". But in some cases, we have only 1 degree of freedon. Then the degrees of freedon is 1. But we do not say, in that case, "the degree of freedom is defined to be", or the degree of freedom are 1" Nor would we say "The degrees of freedom are 19".! So I thonk that the solution is to encapsulate the term within aingle quotes, so that it becomes a singular entity. Thus: The 'degrees of freedom' is defined to be ... "; and The 'degrees of freedom' is 1. Or The degrees of freedom' is 19. This is not the same issue as (one of my prime hates) saying "the data is srored in the dataframe ... ". "Data" is a plural noun (ainguler "datum"), and I would insist on "the data are stored ... ". The French use "une donnee" and "les donnees"; the Germans use "ein Datum", "der Daten"; so they know what they're doing! English-speakers mostly do not" Best wishes to all, Ted.
Ted, et. al.: Re: "Data is" vs "data are" ... Heh heh! "This is the kind of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put." (Attributed to Churchill in one form or another, likely wrongly.) See here for some semi-authoritative dicussion: http://www.onlinegrammar.com.au/top-10-grammar-myths-data-is-plural-so-must-take-a-plural-verb/ Cheers, Bert Bert Gunter "The trouble with having an open mind is that people keep coming along and sticking things into it." -- Opus (aka Berkeley Breathed in his "Bloom County" comic strip ) On Sun, Jun 24, 2018 at 3:44 PM, Ted Harding <ted.harding at wlandres.net> wrote:> On Mon, 2018-06-25 at 09:46 +1200, Rolf Turner wrote: > > Does/should one say "the degrees of freedom is defined to be" or "the > > degrees of freedom are defined to be"? > > > > Although value of "degrees of freedom" is a single number, the first > > formulation sounds very odd to my ear. > > > > I would like to call upon the collective wisdom of the R community to > > help me decide. > > > > Thanks, and my apologies for the off-topic post. > > > > cheers, > > Rolf Turner > > Interesting question, Rolf! > >From my point of view. I see "degrees of freedon" as a plural noun, > because of "degrees". But in some cases, we have only 1 degree of > freedon. Then the degrees of freedon is 1. > > But we do not say, in that case, "the degree of freedom is defined > to be", or the degree of freedom are 1" > > Nor would we say "The degrees of freedom are 19".! > > So I thonk that the solution is to encapsulate the term within > aingle quotes, so that it becomes a singular entity. Thus: > > The 'degrees of freedom' is defined to be ... "; and > The 'degrees of freedom' is 1. > Or > The degrees of freedom' is 19. > > This is not the same issue as (one of my prime hates) saying > "the data is srored in the dataframe ... ". "Data" is a > plural noun (ainguler "datum"), and I would insist on > "the data are stored ... ". The French use "une donnee" and > "les donnees"; the Germans use "ein Datum", "der Daten"; > so they know what they're doing! English-speakers mostly do not" > > Best wishes to all, > Ted. > > ______________________________________________ > R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/ > posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. >[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
On Mon, 25 Jun 2018 09:46:07 +1200 Rolf Turner <r.turner at auckland.ac.nz> wrote:> Does/should one say "the degrees of freedom is defined to be" or "the > degrees of freedom are defined to be"? >I've leaned to differentiating between one degree of freedom and multiple degrees of freedom and, when needed, phrase what I write accordingly. Canned phrases in the output of a routine may use "degrees" simply because most of the time there are multiple degrees of freedom. After all, the only time "degree of freedom" would be appropriate would be when there is just one. JWDougherty