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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 peop
by 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 agoI 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 agoWow, 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.).