Criteria or Criterion?

This is one of my hobby horses. Second panel

• Criterion is singular
• Criteria is plural

She should have said “criterion.”

At least I never hear anyone say “criterions.” Harrumph.

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Not much content today.

I suppose I should comment that I’m satisfied with my wage…

Two of the cases we use in English are nominative, used for subjects of sentences and clauses; and objective, (a combination of accusative and dative used in other languages). We use the objective case for direct and indirect objects. This comic is rather low-brow, but I approve of the title.

“Who” is nominative. It’s the subject of the sentence. “Whom” is objective; its the direct object.

Not much of a lesson (just a pun) but being a tech writer, I couldn’t resist.

Actually, in my trade, we have no such thing as minor edits…

What we say:

The golden rule appears in several forms across religions. The usual way we say it is a misquote of the Bible. We say “Do unto others what you would have them do unto you.”). But this is backwards from Bible! The original, (in modern English) says, “However you want people to treat you, treat them like that.” The Bible states the standard for behavior first (whatsoever ye would that men should do to you), then what you should do (do ye even so to them). We usually first say what to do, then the reason for behaving that way.

Not a big difference, I suppose, but we curmudgeons like to get the details right.