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This is only tangentially related to Khepri, but I'm curious why the STEM community started treating the word "data" like a plural noun, e.g., "Data ARE stored
by innocentoldguy 4y ago
This is only tangentially related to Khepri, but I'm curious why the STEM community started treating the word "data" like a plural noun, e.g., "Data ARE stored in a tree structure"?
I know in Latin, "data" is plural and "datum" is singular, but we aren't speaking Latin, and even if we were, we're not doing so consistently. For example, we don't say, "The meeting's agenda ARE up to date," even though "agenda" is plural and "agendum" is singular. Instead, we adapt the word "agenda" to our grammar and use it as a singular collection, "The meeting's agenda IS up to date," similar to the way we say, "The population IS growing."
To me, saying "Data are..." is pretentious, like when people use the word "an" before words that start with a consonant.
EDIT: Fixed a capitalization typo.
- detaro 4y ago"Started"? That both forms are used, somewhat depending on field, is not really a new thing.
- innocentoldguy 4y agoIt's relatively new to me. When I was in college, books like "The Future of Data Analysis (JW Tukey, 1962) used "data is." I believe all of my CS textbooks treated the word "data" as a singular collection back then. I've only noticed the ubiquitousness of "data are" in engineering books since the turn of the century. It could be a false memory though, which is why I'm asking.
- detaro 4y agoMy impression from styleguides etc is that the singular form is the newer one, and in some cases only somewhat begrudgingly accepted. E.g. recommendations that it is acceptable to use singular when writing for a "general audience", not in "formal or scientific writing", others referring to plural as "still in common use" (but singular taking over). But maybe there's been indeed a return to it in this specific field? not sure.
- innocentoldguy 4y agoThanks for the explanation. +1.
- dagss 4y agoData is the latin plural of the latin word datum...which for some reason is out of use and we now call that "data point". Anyway, "data" as plural is a couple of thousands years old.
- innocentoldguy 4y agoYes. I mentioned this (and a comparison to the way we use agenda vs. agendum) in my original post.
- zelphirkalt 4y ago> To me, saying "Data are..." is pretentious, like when people use the word "an" before words that start with a consonant. Afaik that is only done for words, which sound like they start with a vowels and I think it is done for easier pronunciation. Why is that pretentious?
- innocentoldguy 4y agoThat's not what I mean. The grammar rule isn't "a" before vowels and "an" before consonants, it is "a" before words that start with vowel sounds and "an" before words that begin with consonant sounds, regardless of what letter the word actually begins with (e.g., "an hour" is correct, even though "hour" starts with an "H"). This is normal. What I'm talking about is when people reverse this rule to make themselves sound smarter. For example, I have worked with a few people during my career who would say things like, "I will need an pen and an paper to take notes." When I asked why they did that, they'd parrot back the grammar rule for who vs. whom, which is entirely wrong. This is what I mean by pretentious.
- dumbbell_fr 4y agoWhen I wrote that documentation (and comments in the code), I searched if "data" was singular or plural in English (which is not my mother tongue), because I had no idea what it was. According to the sources I found at that time, there were no clear definition, but it looked like to me it was mostly plural.
- innocentoldguy 4y agoI meant no disrespect to you and apologize if it came across that way. It's a weirdness (in my opinion) of English and how we adapt Latin words into our grammar in inconsistent ways.