It's Time to End the 'Data Is' vs 'Data Are' Debate (vice.com) 248
dmoberhaus writes: After receiving too many irate emails about using "data" in the singular, a reporter spoke to two lexicographers about how the language changes over time and why it's perfectly acceptable and perhaps even "standard" to use data as a singular noun, rather than a plural noun in an attempt to settle an old debate. Peter Sokolowski, a lexicographer for the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, told the reporter that data's transition between its historical roots and contemporary use is related to a lexical phenomenon called "semantic bleaching," where a word's original meaning is lost or diminished over time. An example of semantic bleaching include the contemporary use of the word "literally," whose Latin root, littera, means "letter." In the case of "data," it has transitioned from "things given" to mean something like "a collection of information in aggregate" when used in everyday speech.
Is it? (Score:2)
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I'm pretty sure it aren't.
Re:Is it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Are we sure it is?
We're pretty sure, but we need to wait until more data is available before we officially close the debate.
We're pretty sure, but we need to wait until more data are available before we officially close the debate.
Well, that settles it: The second form just feels weird and stilted, like a grammar rule from a musty out-of-date dictionary. Debate closed.
Re:Is it? (Score:5, Insightful)
We're pretty sure but we need to wait until we have more data before we officially close the debate.
When in doubt change the sentence so that you get around the tricky bit.
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We're pretty sure but we need to wait until we have more data before we officially close the debate.
When in doubt change the sentence so that you get around the tricky bit.
Considering it's future tense it should be:
"We're pretty sure, but we need to wait until more data becomes available before we officially close the debate."
Erm, but to close the debate, English is a living language and changes with each passing year, if not each passing day so say what you want, we'll all understand what you mean. English is a mish-mash of proto-french, proto-germanic, proto-scandiwegian, latin and greek languages, a true mongrel language that borrows words wholesale from other langua
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Are we sure it is?
We're pretty sure, but we need to wait until more data is available before we officially close the debate.
We're pretty sure, but we need to wait until more data are available before we officially close the debate.
Well, that settles it: The second form just feels weird and stilted, like a grammar rule from a musty out-of-date dictionary. Debate closed.
Debate close?
1) What data is you looking at?
2) What data are you looking at?
Nope. Nothing has been settled. The 1st form feels weird.
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The 1st form feels weird.
It's not the same situation:
A1) What apple is you looking at?
A2) What apple are you looking at?
A1) What apples is you looking at?
A2) What apples are you looking at?
It looks like the appropriate selection in your particular example depends not on the plurality of the subject, but instead on whether or not you speak in one particular well-known American ethnic dialect.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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Why would I replace the word when we're specifically talking about data?
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We're pretty sure, but we need to wait until more datums is available before we officially close the debate.
We're pretty sure, but we need to wait until more datums are available before we officially close the debate.
Well, that settles it: The second form just feels weird and stilted, like a grammar rule from a musty out-of-date dictionary. Debate closed.
Debate still open.
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Re: Is it? (Score:5, Funny)
This is why Dr. Pulaski lasted only one season, she was an inhuman monster.
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At least we've still got the gif debate (Score:3, Funny)
I hate when people pronounce gif as gif instead of gif. Everyone knows it's gif!
What debate? (Score:2, Insightful)
How is this a debate? Look in a dictionary. The word has a literal dictionary definition. :-)
The two dictionaries I just checked say data is the plural of datum.
People who use it differently either knowingly choose to (which is fine with me) or they are ignorant.
like deer and fish, but the other way around (Score:5, Interesting)
kinda like "deer" is both the singular of "deer", and also the plural of "deer".
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Re:like deer and fish, but the other way around (Score:5, Funny)
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I thought data was the plural of "anecdote".
Re:What debate? (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is that the word is more commonly used now as a synonym for "information". You would never say "informations". At this point, it is mostly treated as plural in scientific contexts, and even there, it has often been superseded by the compound word "data point", which is obviously and trivially pluralizable.
BTW, Oxford weighed in [oxforddictionaries.com] a while back.
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"At this point, it is mostly treated as plural in scientific contexts"
I suspect this is one of those things that's more about age. I'm a scientist. I generally see data used as a singular or measurable quantity. "Let me see the data." "The data was collected."
I have much older collaborators (about to retire) who change it to a plural when editing though.
Re:What debate? (Score:5, Informative)
I agree. However, the reason you would never say that is because "stuff" is uncountable. Using the article "a" is nonsensical, because that implies that there can be exactly one of something, and thus it must be countable. Just as you can't have exactly one, you can't have more than one, hence it is neither singular nor plural, per se. If "data" can't be used in that way for the same reason, then it, too, is an uncountable mass noun.
Except uncountable nouns in English always take a singular verb, e.g. "This stuff is gross," not "This stuff are gross". "The flour is in the cupboard," not "The flour are in the cupboard," and so on.
The only way "data" can be plural is if you treat it as the plural of datum, which only makes sense if you are talking about a specific, countable set of data points. The result of an experiment produces data that is a collection of datum, hence ostensibly countable, so using it in the plural form is acceptable. When we start talking about the flow of data across a network, that's not really countable in any meaningful sense, because it varies from moment to moment, so it is uncountable, and must take a singular verb.
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Except uncountable nouns in English always take a singular verb, e.g. "This stuff is gross," not "This stuff are gross". "The flour is in the cupboard," not "The flour are in the cupboard," and so on.
You can count flours. There's wheat flour, rice flour...
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You can count types of flour. You can count "foodstuffs" (types of food). But if you say "stuffs", it's a verb, and if you say "flours", everyone will assume you are talking about daisies and roses and mums, oh my!
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One of the better posts discussing the ins and outs, but then you go and make a 'glaring' error...
The only way "data" can be plural is if you treat it as the plural of datum, which only makes sense if you are talking about a specific, countable set of data points. The result of an experiment produces data that is a collection of datum, hence ostensibly countable, so using it in the plural form is acceptable.
If, as in the highlighted example, the word 'data' is countably plural you should have used 'are' as the verb:
The result of an experiment produces data that are a collection of datum
./troll
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Heh. Yes.
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It's kind of poetic when you think about it. There is no such thing as "a data" because a single measurement is a completely different thing than a set of multiple measurements.
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Sorry. I'm new here. :-D
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The two dictionaries I just checked say data is the plural of datum.
People who use it differently either knowingly choose to (which is fine with me) or they are ignorant.
Or they simply use language as it has become common to use, even though not all dictionaries have been updated yet to reflect it. Would have been quite strange if the usage had been in the dictionaries before it had become common :-)
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Not any more. That's the whole point. Language changes. You don't use Chaucer's English any more either. Get over it.
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Generally speaking, dictionaries define words as they are used. They do not prescribe how words "should" be used. The dictionary only says that because that is historically how the words were used. If the meaning of the words as people use them changes, most dictionaries will, too. That being said, with rare exception, most dictionaries document meaning as used in "standard" usage, with is how many would say that language "should" be used, but there are a variety of non-standard usages (and the standard its
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People who use it differently either knowingly choose to (which is fine with me) or they are ignorant.
The funny thing about the english language, when enough people chose to do something either knowingly or through ignorance, it becomes the dictionary definition which is incorrect.
Re: What debate? Mass vs Count noun (Score:2, Interesting)
The real distinction is between a 'mass noun' and a 'count noun.' When your server asks you "would you like french fries or mashed potato?", french fries is a count noun and mashed potato is a mass noun. We usually use water as a mass noun, but biblically, waters meant multiple (countable) bodies of water.
So the question about 'data' is whether it has transitioned from something countable to something measured in bulk ( e.g. ounces of rice versus grains of rice). The claim here is that more people are u
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That's nice that you knew some Latin and are also familiar with the mass/count distinction, but I question whether you're a native English speaker, when you claim that a server asks if you want "mashed potato". It's always always always mashed potatoes.
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That's nice that you knew some Latin and are also familiar with the mass/count distinction, but I question whether you're a native English speaker, when you claim that a server asks if you want "mashed potato". It's always always always mashed potatoes.
The big question is if the chef literally only mashed a single potato and served it to you, would it still be mashed potatoes?
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It depends where you are. A British server is likely to ask you if you want "some mash."
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What do you know. You blocks call chips by the wrong name!
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Google Ngrams currently puts it close to 50:50 for British English [google.com], but with "potatoes" winning historically. It's about 90:10 in favour of "potatoes" for American English [google.com].
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Data is a collective noun. You can treat it as either singular or plural as long as you stick with it.
As for datum, that's not a word people use. It's data or piece of data.
"Datum" is in active use, but not as a singular for "data". Instead it means some kind of reference point as in , for example geodetic datum [wikipedia.org].
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Ironically, "datum" often refers to a *set* of reference measurements.
Didn't know the argument had started (Score:2)
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You're still using R:Base?
Data are an Android (Score:5, Funny)
"Data are an Android." No sir, I don't like it.
How do you tell if someone is an idiot? (Score:3)
They participate in inane meaningless debates like "is data plural or singular"?, while the rest of the world just laughs at them and keeps on.
Re:How do you tell if someone is an idiot? (Score:5, Funny)
Thank you! (Score:2)
No (Score:5, Funny)
No it aren't.
Plural in Latin, singular in English (Score:5, Informative)
Plural in Latin, singular mass noun in English, does it need to be any more complicated? Strictly speaking, if you mean to write the latin word in English prose then you should italicize it.
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No. That's wrong. A subset of English IS latin. That is, is unchanged from the original latin but is now part of English. This is part of the English language as is a little je ne sais quoi.
De facto
De jure
Annus Mirabilis
Caveat emptor
etc.
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If you are trying to be rigorous then you will italicize all of those when written in English prose. Some foreign words do actually become part of the language, like brunette, then don't italicize. Some are clearly not english, like bon vivant, so capitalize if you are trying to be rigorous. And others, like chic, are in transition. Language is not perfectly rigorous, rather it is a fluid, evolving thing.
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Yeah, but many latin words, including the ones I mentioned, and also datum and data, are clearly already fully IN the English language, and italicizing them would be wrong.
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To clarify, if you insist on regarding data as plural then you should write "data are", to show that you are using the Latin word, not the English one.
What about hospital? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Neal Stephenson. "Anathem". End of story.
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Well, then that's the shortest story I've ever read. But thanks for saving me the paperback price!
Re:What about hospital? (Score:4, Insightful)
That one's easy. When you say "in the hospital", the use of the definitive article "the" implies that it is a *specific* hospital they are in (usually with some understanding that the reader/listener is already aware of which *specific* hospital is under discussion).
When you say someone is "in hospital" it is a more general statement, saying that they are in a hospital somewhere receiving medical treatment, but does not imply that the *specific* hospital in question is already shared knowledge with the listener.
USians tend to use "in the hospital" for the most part because their health care system sucks balls and in most places there is only ONE local hospital which you could be referring to.
In other countries with proper healthcare, there are multiple possible hospitals, and the specific hospital can't be assumed by context.
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Re:What about hospital? (Score:5, Interesting)
Spoken like a true and proper douche who has never left their own town. Is it really any wonder why there's a strong anti-europe sentiment in the US when there's people as condescending as yourself?
Wow. You really are an idiot.
I'm Canadian, moron. Also, the only douches here are the ones posting AC LOL...
Realistically, I can take any socialized health care system and point out to a way that it's inferior to the US system.
No, you can't, because they aren't. The US has the worst health care in the developed world; Mexico and Cuba are better.
The thing people as naive as yourself don't realize is every system has its positives and every system has its negatives.
Nope. The thing USians don't realize - because they've deliberately lobotomized their educational system, and therefore have a hopelessly parochial and myopic view of the world - is that health care is better just about ANYWHERE in the world that isn't a third-world banana republic, and even some of THOSE have better health care!
Honestly, I don't know what else to expect from a degenerate culture that uses their own children for target practice though...
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Realistically, I can take any socialized health care system and point out to a way that it's inferior to the US system.
So for every system in the world you can find one area of US healthcare which is at least marginally better. Nonetheless that would handily avoid all the areas where it's much worse.
The US system is expensive, but also
But nothing. The outcomes are at best comparable (US does well at cancer in particular) but often much worse (the US is awful at infant mortality) than other third world coun
Maths are languages (Score:2)
I'm an American, so I am accustomed to American English. Maths makes perfect sense to me.
The symbols "cue" can mean completely different things in different languages. The arrow symbol means completely different, unrelated, things in different algebras. I literally do relational algebra in my sleep, and barely remember linear algebra at all. Relational algebra and linear algebra have pretty much nothing at all to do one one another, yet both are algebras. Much like Japanese and German and both spoken langua
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I still want to know why in the UK they say "in hospital" instead of "in the hospital".
Next you'll want to know how to get out of the debt.
And don't get me started with "math" vs "maths".
So in the US you study mathematic I suppose. If you're going to abbreviate a word like "carriages", should the result be "car" or "cars"? If you have two cars, why would you not study maths? Put another way, if you study math, then why would you not have two car?
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I still want to know why in the UK they say "in hospital" instead of "in the hospital". What's up with that? And don't get me started with "math" vs "maths".
In UK English, "in hospital" implies a state, that you are in hospital therefore sick. To say that you are "in the hospital" implies that is your current location however we'd use the name of the hospital because there are a lot of hospitals in the UK I.E. "I'm in Royal Berkshire waiting for an X-Ray".
Maths vs math... Considering the full word is "mathematics" is a plural, any shortened form of the word should also be pluralised. Using "math" is simply incorrect.
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Maths and sciences. It's an acknowledgement that the subject of mathematics (also a plural) is rich, with many subfields.
This is California, dammit! (Score:2)
...my data is/are gender-flex and plural-flex. Deal with.
plural (Score:2)
I'd rather rant about "unique" (Score:2)
It's not "very unique". It's either one of a kind, or not. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know "unusual" has been added as one possible meaning of unique in Websters, but that was more recent, and frankly, I think the definition should revert back to being without a like or equal. It was such a fantastic word for that purpose.
As it stands now, you might as well just say, "that's unusual." It means the same thing in our modern lexicon.
Depends on your audience (Score:2)
If you're writing for a lay audience, no one cares. If you're writing for an academic audience, you need to use plural verbs (think: data = numbers) as this rule is deeply entrenched in academia. I don't see this changing any time soon.
Just came here to argue the opposite case (Score:4, Insightful)
...but then I read the summary and was too bored to figure out what the opposite case is supposed to be.
Gump (Score:2)
"Data is", not "Data are" (Score:2)
Data was never assimilated by the Borg, and therefore has always been singular, not plural. Case closed.
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Not Data LORE!
Time to End the 'Data Is' vs 'Data Are' Debate (Score:2)
You is right!
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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So much this. If you want a plural meaning, using a plural noun. THOSE PLAYERS are winning.
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If you want a plural meaning, using a plural noun. THOSE PLAYERS are winning.
Those datas are bad?
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And people are sovereign. All the peoples agree!
...
... Well, not quite all (damn Brits).
An example include (Score:2)
I'm happy when language evolves -- when that evolution is intentional. But when that evolution is the result of really very stupid people, or just plain error and mistake, well then those evolutions are to be resisted.
AN example of semantic bleaching INCLUDES
EXAMPLES of semantic bleaching INCLUDE
You don't get to label your own errors as evolution when you don't even realize that you're making them.
As for "literally", well, I've spent twenty years saying "I'm using the word 'literally' figuratively." -- whi
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"dictionary". Do you mean "lexicon"?
It's worse with dollars (Score:5, Insightful)
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Not quite. Data is a complex word that is both a plural and singular like deer or a sheep.
Dollars on the other hand is a plural and using "was" is objectively wrong despite it being used quite commonly. Mind you I could care less about these English debates.
Panini (Score:2)
"Panini" is italian plural of panino and so it means "sandwiches". In English speaking world it is used as a singular noun with "paninis" as plural. Nothing to stress over, languages are malleable.
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It's fun to watch Italians rolling their eyes when you order a panini though.
I also grin every time I say something like "four twenties eight!" in French.
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In English it means "A perfectly good sandwich which we have ruined by crushing the shit out of it while heating for you!"
Zoidberg (Score:2)
Singular (Score:2)
"Data are the android on the Enterprise" vs.
"Data is the android on the Enterprise".
Datum (Score:2)
is 'agenda' plural? (Score:2)
Data is singular when it's an abbreviation of the collective noun 'dataset'. The only people that I know that insist 'data' is plural are 60+ year old scientists who speak Latin.
For those of you who insist that 'data' is plural, then by that same logic, 'agenda' (a collection of agendum) is also plural.
The audience for this ... (Score:2)
Or, the audience for this debate is American.
I have two data (Score:2)
Data is the plural of datum. Should we allow "datum are" also?
It sounds ok if somebody says "I have one datum." Would it sound right if somebody said "I have two data."?
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Are you so dumb you wouldn't understand the second? No? Then who TF cares?!?!
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It comes from the latin roots of part of the English language:
A referendum was held.
Two referenda were held.
This phenomenon is exceedingly rare.
But those phenomena are relatively common.
See the latin pluralizations?
"Traditionally correct" usage of the English language often is connected with an awareness of the history of how certain words became part of the language.
Same goes with spelling. English (and sometimes Canadian) English, has colour and labour and neighbour, from which we can see the French origi
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That typo claim factually incorrect.
Re: Whatever (Score:2, Informative)
It was named aluminum by the discoverer and renamed because it didn't sound like those other metals.
At this time, both are accepted.
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I thought it was an intentional attempt to make the language more phonetic.