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Yes! Like 'data' - it's singular ffs, so say 'the data in this paper shows' not 'the data show'. Looking at you TWiV!! Maybe if it still makes sense semantical

Yes! Like 'data' - it's singular ffs, so say 'the data in this paper shows' not 'the data show'. Looking at you TWiV!! Maybe if it still makes sense semantically to replace 'data' with 'data points', then the plural is ok. However mostly we are talking about a 'wodge' of data, with discussion, caveats, etc, more than a simple list of 'datums'.

gnicholas 4y ago
I'm pretty prescriptivist when it comes to grammar, but I also think that "data" should be referred to in the way you describe, and for those reasons. When people say "data" they generally mean "dataset", which is unambiguously singular. It just doesn't make sense to say "dataset" when "data" will do.
- ghayes 4y ago
  I would argue that prescriptivism in English still refers solely to English. The idea that since data is plural in Latin, it must also be plural in English doesn't follow for me. Plenty of words change plurality when being taken into another language, e.g. * Laos is plural in French but singular in English. * Cherise is singular in French, but was rebracketed as a plural in English (and then transformed to cherry as the singular).
  - gnicholas 4y ago
    Wow, super interesting. Apparently that is called "back-formation", and applies to other words like "caper", "pea", and "burgle" (from "burglar"). [1] 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back-formation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back-formation
- jmole 4y ago
  "Data" as a grammatic plural seems to be more common in UK english than US. I think the way to properly pluralize it is by adding a unit, the same way we'd do with words like "information" (bits of information), "work" (Joules of work), or other meta/physical quantities (rays of sunshine, pangs of heartache, etc.).
mhb 4y ago
What gives you the idea that data is singular? And then what is datum?
- subarctic 4y ago
  Ya, what is a datum? Is that like a piece of data? I've heard that data is actually supposed to be plural, but that "correct" usage is so far outside of my experience that it just seems weird and confusing. The one I actually find annoying though is when people use "an" before a word that starts with a (pronounced) h, like "an historic building". It's like, dude, I know you're trying to seem all smart and superior and it isn't working. (Of course, if they said it with a french accent and a silent h that would make more sense.)
  - gnicholas 4y ago
    > The one I actually find annoying though is when people use "an" before a word that starts with a (pronounced) h, like "an historic building". It's like, dude, I know you're trying to seem all smart and superior and it isn't working. (Of course, if they said it with a french accent and a silent h that would make more sense.) This is something that has puzzled me as well. My wife, a historian (not "an historian!") will write this way, and when I've asked her about it she says it's just the proper way. When I looked into the history of it, I concluded that it probably made sense for the British (who say "historian" with a somewhat silent "H"), and probably for early Americans. But for those of us who speak Standard American English, it seems somewhere between unnecessary and stuffy. I wonder how spell checking software deal with this? IIRC it's an exception for words starting with "H" where there emphasis is not on the first syllable (which would result in the "H" being enunciated).
    - scubbo 4y ago
      I don't know for sure, but I suspect (in keeping with the fetishization of Latin that motivates many prescriptivist rules, like the injunction to never split an infinitive) that this arises from Ancient Greek[0], wherein there is not a separate letter "H" but rather a modification ("breath", if I remember rightly?) on the vowel. If you (mis)apply this rule to English, "hospital" starts with a vowel. [0] this might be true in Modern Greek as well, I don't know - but English professors don't have such a raging boner for the modern version.
hackyhacky 4y ago
Just because it can be singular doesn't mean that it must be singular.
jltsiren 4y ago
I think the difference is in the perspective. The data is the substance you process, while the data are the observations or measurements you analyze. People who use "data" as plural tend to be more interested in the content than in operating the machinery.
nine_k 4y ago
Data are plural when you can also refer to a single datum. Data is singular if it's a mass noun, like water. There is a similar conundrum with media / medium.
foldr 4y ago
‘Data’ is the Latin plural, so the traditional prescriptivist advice to say ‘the data are’ is based on the assumption that the word is grammatically plural, not any argument about semantics. There are actually lots of grammatically plural nouns that are used to refer to things that can’t be split into discrete chunks. For example, while ‘the news’ in English has been reanalyzed as singular, it remains ‘las noticias’ in Spanish - without any implication that a specific number of discrete news items are being referred to.

gnicholas 4y ago

I'm pretty prescriptivist when it comes to grammar, but I also think that "data" should be referred to in the way you describe, and for those reasons. When people say "data" they generally mean "dataset", which is unambiguously singular. It just doesn't make sense to say "dataset" when "data" will do.

ghayes 4y ago
I would argue that prescriptivism in English still refers solely to English. The idea that since data is plural in Latin, it must also be plural in English doesn't follow for me. Plenty of words change plurality when being taken into another language, e.g. * Laos is plural in French but singular in English. * Cherise is singular in French, but was rebracketed as a plural in English (and then transformed to cherry as the singular).
- gnicholas 4y ago
  Wow, super interesting. Apparently that is called "back-formation", and applies to other words like "caper", "pea", and "burgle" (from "burglar"). [1] 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back-formation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back-formation
jmole 4y ago
"Data" as a grammatic plural seems to be more common in UK english than US. I think the way to properly pluralize it is by adding a unit, the same way we'd do with words like "information" (bits of information), "work" (Joules of work), or other meta/physical quantities (rays of sunshine, pangs of heartache, etc.).

mhb 4y ago

What gives you the idea that data is singular? And then what is datum?

subarctic 4y ago
Ya, what is a datum? Is that like a piece of data? I've heard that data is actually supposed to be plural, but that "correct" usage is so far outside of my experience that it just seems weird and confusing. The one I actually find annoying though is when people use "an" before a word that starts with a (pronounced) h, like "an historic building". It's like, dude, I know you're trying to seem all smart and superior and it isn't working. (Of course, if they said it with a french accent and a silent h that would make more sense.)
- gnicholas 4y ago
  > The one I actually find annoying though is when people use "an" before a word that starts with a (pronounced) h, like "an historic building". It's like, dude, I know you're trying to seem all smart and superior and it isn't working. (Of course, if they said it with a french accent and a silent h that would make more sense.) This is something that has puzzled me as well. My wife, a historian (not "an historian!") will write this way, and when I've asked her about it she says it's just the proper way. When I looked into the history of it, I concluded that it probably made sense for the British (who say "historian" with a somewhat silent "H"), and probably for early Americans. But for those of us who speak Standard American English, it seems somewhere between unnecessary and stuffy. I wonder how spell checking software deal with this? IIRC it's an exception for words starting with "H" where there emphasis is not on the first syllable (which would result in the "H" being enunciated).
  - scubbo 4y ago
    I don't know for sure, but I suspect (in keeping with the fetishization of Latin that motivates many prescriptivist rules, like the injunction to never split an infinitive) that this arises from Ancient Greek[0], wherein there is not a separate letter "H" but rather a modification ("breath", if I remember rightly?) on the vowel. If you (mis)apply this rule to English, "hospital" starts with a vowel. [0] this might be true in Modern Greek as well, I don't know - but English professors don't have such a raging boner for the modern version.

hackyhacky 4y ago

Just because it can be singular doesn't mean that it must be singular.

jltsiren 4y ago

I think the difference is in the perspective. The data is the substance you process, while the data are the observations or measurements you analyze. People who use "data" as plural tend to be more interested in the content than in operating the machinery.

nine_k 4y ago

Data are plural when you can also refer to a single datum. Data is singular if it's a mass noun, like water. There is a similar conundrum with media / medium.

foldr 4y ago

‘Data’ is the Latin plural, so the traditional prescriptivist advice to say ‘the data are’ is based on the assumption that the word is grammatically plural, not any argument about semantics. There are actually lots of grammatically plural nouns that are used to refer to things that can’t be split into discrete chunks. For example, while ‘the news’ in English has been reanalyzed as singular, it remains ‘las noticias’ in Spanish - without any implication that a specific number of discrete news items are being referred to.