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Oh well...its just a phenomena !

The confusion arises because in ancient Greek neuter plurals take a singular verb but not in English. The Telegraph setter is obviously a confused classicist. I should have said that 'phenomena' (and 'criteria') are transcriptions of Greek neuter plurals, so you can understand his confusion.

The Telegraph uses Chambers 11th version as its reference. If you rely on any other dictionary, printed or online, you will come unstuck on a number of Telegraph clues. Having said that, I have failed to find SDA as an abbreviation for South Dakota anywhere in Chambers (see 24d today)

Well, I'm with Big Dave, Chambers and the ODE.

What are things coming to, if the Telegraph is using non-standard English in its Crosswords?

Thank you for the informative comments above.

On to the future....