Being bilingual I find the quirks of the English language funny. After reading the FAQ in the text book I went on to look into this irregularity. According to Common Errors in the English Language there are several words with Latin or Greek roots whose plural forms ending in "A" are often confused for singular ones. Data is the plural form of datum. Datum is so rare now that many confuse data as the singular form. As stated in the FAQ it is now common for us to use "data" for both the plural and singular form. Other examples of this oddity are criteria and media.
I wonder how many other words do we try to make plural and are already in thier plural form. ummmmmm!
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