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“All your commas are belong to Array” and similar — is this grammar form “proper”?

What's the necessity of "are" before "belong" in this sentence?

All your data are belong to US.

I don't understand the point of using "are" before "belong" here. Isn't it just fine to say: all your data belong to US?

enter image description here

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5  
Shouldn't that really be "all YOUR datum are belong to US"? – Peter Shor Mar 24 '12 at 10:48

marked as duplicate by RegDwighт♦ Mar 24 '12 at 15:22

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3 Answers

up vote 4 down vote

A little history is in order here. This poster builds on the "All your base are belong to us" meme that arose from a poorly translated (from Japanese?) phrase in a video game in which the AI bad guys taunt the player that "we now have taken possession of all your bases". See the wikipedia article for more information.

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up vote 12 down vote

It's not correct. The image you have there was made to be tongue-in-cheek (at the expense of the US government). It's a play on the meme All your base are belong to us.

As you say, if you remove the are, it becomes grammatical:

All your data belong to us (or US, depending how you look at it).

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5  
You mean it's intentionally incorrect just for the sake of being humorous? – Meysam Mar 24 '12 at 8:35
Yes. It could easily be referring to SOPA and PIPA, acts which were proposed this year which would essentially allow the government to become more and more invasive. – Daniel δ Mar 24 '12 at 8:49
2  
Actually, it is intentionally incorrect because it is an accidentally incorrect in the original meme. It has to put this way to reflect the meme properly. – Schroedingers Cat Mar 24 '12 at 9:59
up vote 2 down vote

It is ungrammatical, and you're right. All your data belong to us is correct.

There is a question of whether data might be treated as singular or plural. It's strictly a a plural noun, but often treated as singular (All your data belongs to us)

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1  
It is ungrammatical but perfectly fine for the context, as the other answers explained. – nico Mar 24 '12 at 15:35

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