OK, I know that the word “media” is plural. So could someone please confirm for me that this sentence is correct:
The media are a business.
Also, does it make grammatical and logical sense to follow that with “a business?” I’m trying to say that, overall, the media’s intent is to make money; I’m not trying to say that they’re a million little businesses spread throughout the country. I think, then, that saying “a business” (even though the subject is plural) works. Thanks!
Well, I believe in American English it would be, “The media is a business.” because of our tendency to treat collective nouns as singular.
Actually, I think it’s a “mass noun.”
Going by Wikipedia examples of mass nouns:
Advice are good. Advice is good.
Blood are red. Blood is red.
Cattle are animals. Cattle is an animal.
Equipment are expensive. Equipment is expensive.
Furniture are products. Furniture is a product.
Grass are green. Grass is green.
etc.
For all of those but cattle, I’d go with “is”, but that makes sense since unlike “a product”, a numeric quantity is implied by “is an animal.” I don’t think that’s the case with “a business.”
My mistake.
OK, here’s the problem: the singular and plural forms of all the words above are the same. Media has a singular form: medium.
Obligatory:
Bubba goes off for his freshman year in college. Not only is he the first person in his family to go to college, he’s the first person in his whole village. So when he comes home for the holidays, he’s something of a celebrity, and the whole town gathers around.
“So, son,” says his Pa, “what’d they learn there at that high-falutin’ college?”
“πr^2, Pa,” says Bubba.
“What’d you just tell me?” says Pa.
“πr^2,” repeats Bubba. Pa slaps him across the face.
“Goddammit, boy!” exclaims Pa. “They didn’t learn you nothin’! Pie aren’t square! Pie are round! Cornbread are square.”
Except “media” in this case isn’t the plural of “medium”, it’s a shortening of the phrase “mass media.” If you were talking about media in terms of paper and pencil versus cast iron, then that would be it’s own issue.
Media are objects used in the creation of art.
Media is an object used in the creation of art.
Professional editor here.
Nominally plural nouns like media and data have come to be widely treated in ordinary speech, and even in all but the most formal writing, as singular. Depending on where you are writing, it might be perfectly fine to write “The media is a business.”
However, as a fairly persnickety editor, I wouldn’t let it pass. My preference would be to say something like “The media are businesses,” or if you want to come closer to the way you put it in your explanation, “Media companies are businesses trying to turn a profit.”
As usual in language questions, recasting the sentence can often be the best choice between being too colloquial and stuffily correct.
Sage Rat, we are definitely not talking about mass nouns as described in the Wikipedia article of that name. Media (and data) are just examples of Latinate plurals whose identity as plurals was lost because they don’t follow the usual English rules for forming the plural (add “s”). If the usual form was “mediums,” we would never have begun saying things like “the mediums is a business.”
Sorry, even in that case, “media” is the plural of “medium.” Television, print, and radio are all mediums, i.e. media.
Yes, it’s gotten to the point that people talk of a single CD or piece of paper as “a media.” It makes me cringe, I would never write or say it, and there’s probably no stopping it. But as you said, it’s not relevant to the example under discussion.
Whether it makes you cringe or not, the rules of language follow usage not logic or etymology.
I’d vote that both data and media are mass nouns in usage, even if their history doesn’t logically lead to them being so. Google warring gives 74 million results for “data is” versus 20 million for “data are”, 9 million for “media is” and 3 million for “media are.” A 2/3rds majority is enough to amend the constitution; one would think it enough to change basic grammar. 
Only if you’re speaking latin. I speak English, so I can say “The media has overreported the story.”
Or something like this:
To insist on a latin plural being treated as a plural in English is on par as insisting that any latin word in English needs to be declined. :rolleyes:
(BTW, as a final nail in the coffin of the “media is plural” argument, the OED has this:
Really? I’ve never seen that. Usually I see “this staff paper is an excellent medium for writing your compositions” or “the internet is a wonderful medium for expressing yourself.” (The internet in itself may be a mass noun, so maybe that last one isn’t the best)
Now I’m not arguing media isn’t misuesed, it obviously is, I’ve jsut never seen medium phased out as completely as you’re saying it is. Any examples (anecdotal or not)?
The point is that “data” and “media” are not only Latin plurals, they’re also absolutely correct English plurals. This is not the equivalent of banning split infinitives in English merely because it’s impossible to split them in Latin. English is a complex and varied language that has more than one way of forming plurals, some of which originate in other languages. For instance the plural of “cherub” is “cherubim.” This comes to us from Hebrew by way of Latin. It’s unusual, but it’s correct.
That’s not to say that it’s wrong to say “cherubs,” and if you and Sage Rat had read my first post, you’d see that I said that treating “media” as a singular has become common, and might be appropriate, depending on context. I went on to say that as an editor, I would avoid it, if possible. I didn’t say it’s always and absolutely wrong, I didn’t castigate anyone for using it. I just said there are better alternatives that don’t violate the “rule.”
Up until about 50 or 60 years ago, neither “data” nor “media” were commonly used terms, and virtually no one used them as singular nouns. To do so then would have marked you in the same class as someone who said “cornbread are square.” As “data processing” and the “mass media” became household terms, people began incorrectly using them as singular, because, as I said upthread, they were not recognized as plurals.
Eventually the misuse became common enough to be seen as correct, and I am not railing against that. If a writer I was editing insisted on using either term as a singular, I would probably agree. But for those of us who remember when that construction was just plain wrong, it will always seem so, and we try to avoid it when possible. And fortunately it usually is possible to write very well without that, without splitting infinitives, and without ending sentences with propositions. Even if these things aren’t really “wrong” and can be used with good effect on occasion, a good writer and editor will usually avoid them, if only to avoid having to deal with pedantic twits (or should I say, other pedantic twits).
However, your claim that treating “data” and “media” as plurals isn’t English, and Sage rat’s assertion that “‘Media’ in this case isn’t the plural of ‘medium,’ it’s a shortening of the phrase ‘mass media,’” are just flat out wrong.
I’ve seen it in the computer world. A disc duplicating program, for instance, instructs you to “insert a blank media” into the drive.
Yeah, I think it depends on what you actually mean by “the media.” (And if you don’t know what you mean, go away and think about it and come back when you do know.) If you mean the entertainment media, would it work just as well to say “Entertainment is a business”? If you mean the news media, could you say “News is a business”? Or “the news media are businesses,” as in, TV news is a business, print journalism is a business, etc.
Media can be correctly treated as a singular collective noun or as a plural noun depending on the context. It’s correct to say “the media is a major factor in elections” and “the media are businesses with profit motivations”.
Heh. I just noticed that the OP has been banned. Oh, well.
Media: mass noun or collective noun? Both classifications have been used in this thread. Maybe either depending on the context…?