[Closed] Pedants' Corner

Oh, hang on, people is the plural so it's the second one.

The first, but why not:

'data belonging to millions of people'

millions of peoples' data

since data is plural, no?

People can be plural or singular.

Lots of individuals in one place are people. Things belonging to them are people's.

The inhabitants of France and Germany are French and German peoples. Things belonging to them are peoples'.

peoples is the plural of people is the plural of person. Clear, eh?

I'd go with IHN's 'data belonging to millions of people'

Both peoples' and people's look a bit weird to me.

People's looks fine because http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peopl e's_Republic

Second one.

Still sounds clunky though.

'Data from millions of people' or 'Data belonging to millions...' depending on exact context.

Are you writing a press release stating that the Government has misplaced/sold millions of peoples' data?

No, but the appearance of one would not surprise me.

I'm writing the copy our website update, we do security systems for data centres (among other things)

I'm going with "Your data centre houses millions of people's personal information", I didn't want data twice in the same sentence

[i]"Your data centre houses millions of people's personal information" [/i]

Sounds v.clunky.

How about:

"Your datacentre [it's a single word isn't it?] houses personal information belonging to millions of people"

Both can be correct, but mean subtly differing things.

Surely it should be

millions of persons' data

Nice IHN, I'll have that! Cheque's in the post

"your data centre houses shitloads of data"

[i]"your data centre houses shitloads of data"[/i]

Tut

"your data centre houses shit-loads of data"

🙂

The data doesn't belong to [i]peoples[/i] it belongs to [i]people[/i] so the second one.

"your data centre houses shitloads of data"

Tut

"your data centre houses shit-loads of data"

No, not hyphenated according to urban dictionary:

shitload

meaning quite a few, a bunch, a lot, very many, more than you care to be able to count, more than you can count; a widely used exaggeration of there being far too many of something ~ not to be confused with a boatload or a whole ******* bunch

"your data centrehouses shit loads of data"

[i]people[/i] is a singular noun meaning more that one person. The plural in this instance is [b]millions[/b] (being the plural of million). So, although the data belongs to more than one person, the use of the word [i]people[/i] in the statement is in fact singular; therefore it is apostophe s, not s apostophe. Possibly 😉
(The use of the word [i]peoples[/i] would be more appropriate to describing the populations of more than one country in geographical terms)

loadsa bods shite eh!

or just do as the Germans do:

Yourdatacentrehousespersonalinformationbelongingtomillionsofpeople

Except Germans lob the verb at the end, so pedantically speaking, it's...

Yourdatacentrepersonalinformationbelongingtomillionsofpeoplehouses

Good work 🙂

* is chuffed *

😉

Or Yoda it:

Personal information belonging to millions of people it houses your data centre does

or do what the American's do and and use "a lot of stuff".

Please can we start by defining the dimensions of the corner that we are expected to occupy.

I'm not even sure it is a 'corner' but I'm loathe to describe it as a 'cranny' or a 'nook'.

The data doesn't belong to millions of people. So, to disambiguate:

"Our datacentre holds personal information for millions of people."

I don't think the data belongs to the people anyway, it's just about them.

I don't think the data belongs to the people anyway, it's just about them.

Ah, so that's a different kettle of eels.

But surely, according to the DPA, the data does indeed belong to the people and they, the people, are simply allowing the instition(s) in question to store it at the datacentre/data centre/centre of data and use it only for specific purposes.

[i]Our datacentre holds personal information for millions of people[/i]

That's not necessarily correct either, unless the people have asked the institutions to hold the data, i.e. the holding of the data by the institution is a service in itself. In most cases, the institutions have asked the people if their data can be held.

Our datacentre holds information about millions of people?

The lives of millions are tracked, measured and mined within our sinister shed.

Ah, but are you sure that the datacentre doesn't house data for millions of peoples?

I'm not even sure it is a 'corner' but I'm loathe to describe it as a 'cranny' or a 'nook'.

I'd be loath to misspell loath.

Is it too late to suggest "All your data are belong to us"?

The data [s]doesn't[/s] [b]do not[/b] belong to peoples i[s]t[/s] [b]they[/b] belongs to people so the second one

If you want to appeal to the youth.

MLLNS OF PPLS DT

*I had to use this http://www.madhousebeyond.com/?mode=txtspeak

🙂

How about "we'll sell your personal data as soon as look at you - scummers !"

(or scummer's or scummers' ?)

Mastilles and psling are correct.

(n.b. I only came here because the word 'singular' was in the thread)

n.b. I only came here because the word 'singular' was in the thread

<Makes note to attempt to use that in all my replies (along with on-one, bikemonger, etc., to irritate all the other google alert users) 😉 >

Ooh look, I'm doing it already!