Learn English – “Analysis” vs. “analyses”

grammatical-numbergrammaticalitynouns

The (U.S.) National Institutes of Health website has a webpage that states that it contains

reports, data and analyses of NIH research activities

I feel as though this sounds awkward. Would "reports, data and analysis of NIH research activities" be better phrasing, or is the current one technically correct?

Best Answer

There is nothing at all wrong with the original phrasing, technically or otherwise.

Converting analyses to the singular is at best misleading, since it implies there is only one analysis, which is unlikely to be true.

Perhaps it goes some way to explaining OP's misgivings about the plural if I point out that it's common practice for UK tv news programmes, for example, to end by saying something like "For more in-depth analysis of the news, go to our website..." In that construct we probably wouldn't hear the plural, even though obviously it's more 'accurate'. I think the mass media tend to assume analyses is a 'technical' term, too 'highbrow' for many of their audience.

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