These rule is made to be broken, aren't it ?

The BBC was, once upon a time, a paragon* of correctness. But correctness is apparently out of fashion.  According to some commentators, the BBC has broken its own rules about the way its Team of the Year Award was recently decided: they didn't stick to their own prescribed guide lines.

Never mind the main matter at issue, though.  What this pedant regrets are the terms in which it was publicly justified.  "This criteria  . . . " started an official BBC explanation.  And in case you believe this might have been just an accidental misprint in the report, you will find a further explanation a few lines later, starting "The criteria was amended . . ."

Nowadays we often hear or read of  'this data' **.  But data and criteria are both plurals, of datum and criterion respectively.  Datum (a term borrowed from Latin) means 'something given', as we pointed out in an earlier post in this blog: so data means 'things given'. Criterion (a point on which a judgement is made) is borrowed from Greek, and the plural is criteria. (Please don't tell me I should have written "The plural are criteria".  That might make sense in another context - though it isn't easy to think of one on the spur of the moment - but certainly not here.)

*  (How many sides has a paragon, you may ask).
**  Not to mention 'strata' and 'media'.  See post of 24th November.

These rule is made to be broken, aren't it ?