Data was originally plural of datum. However, language changes; in common usage, data is both singular and plural.
So “data is” is correct because of current usage.
And “data are” is correct because of traditional usage, which still applies among pedantic circles.
Impressive-Tip-1689 on
Unfortunately, data may be treated as either a singular or a plural noun in English, 1even though it is clearly the plural form of datum.
In general, journalistic, and business contexts, data iscommonly treated as a mass singular noun.In scientific and formal academic writing, treating data as plural is widely preferred.
KaranasToll on
we should eftname it to knowledge is smicker.
DownrightCaterpillar on
No, data is an uncountable noun in English. British English tends to follow the spelling rules and occasionally the grammar rules of the source language for a word (data is a plural Latin word, singular form is datum), whereas American English is more consistent about enforcing the countable/uncountable dichotomy through verb conjugations.
Another example would be that British are more likely to say “foods” and Americans almost never do, and rather say “kinds of food.” Many such cases. It’s just a cultural difference. We’d usually express a singular amount of data as “data point,” no English speaker says “datum.” So the fact that “data” in the source language is plural is not relevant to English speakers.
quiksilver123 on
Like others have mentioned, data is an uncountable noun. A quick general rule of thumb (because English has many exceptions to many grammar rules) to determine if it’s a countable noun is to put a number before the noun. If it makes sense, it’s a countable noun. If not, then it’s an uncountable noun.
In contrast, it isn’t possible to say 3 furnitures, 6 rice, 23 flours, etc.
An uncountable noun can be turned into a countable noun by adding a quantifier or a unit of measurement. So for example, you could say 6 pounds or packs of rice/flour, 3 pieces of furniture, etc.
To turn “data” to an uncountable noun, we would add something like 431 kilobytes of data , megabytes, etc.
Source-former ESL teacher.
0kDetective on
The fact is ‘data are’ sounds wrong and that’s all there is to it.
10 Comments
Data is a non-countable noun so it uses “is” instead of “are”.
Plural verbs are not used for uncountable nouns i.e you don’t say “money are”
Get out. In this sub, we stan the fully functional Lt. Cmd. Data.
Both the single and plural construction of data are [standard](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/data) in modern English.
Data was originally plural of datum. However, language changes; in common usage, data is both singular and plural.
So “data is” is correct because of current usage.
And “data are” is correct because of traditional usage, which still applies among pedantic circles.
Unfortunately, data may be treated as either a singular or a plural noun in English, 1even though it is clearly the plural form of datum.
In general, journalistic, and business contexts, data iscommonly treated as a mass singular noun.In scientific and formal academic writing, treating data as plural is widely preferred.
we should eftname it to knowledge is smicker.
No, data is an uncountable noun in English. British English tends to follow the spelling rules and occasionally the grammar rules of the source language for a word (data is a plural Latin word, singular form is datum), whereas American English is more consistent about enforcing the countable/uncountable dichotomy through verb conjugations.
Another example would be that British are more likely to say “foods” and Americans almost never do, and rather say “kinds of food.” Many such cases. It’s just a cultural difference. We’d usually express a singular amount of data as “data point,” no English speaker says “datum.” So the fact that “data” in the source language is plural is not relevant to English speakers.
Like others have mentioned, data is an uncountable noun. A quick general rule of thumb (because English has many exceptions to many grammar rules) to determine if it’s a countable noun is to put a number before the noun. If it makes sense, it’s a countable noun. If not, then it’s an uncountable noun.
Examples of countable nouns: 2 dogs, 5 computers, 19 cars, 89 players, etc
In contrast, it isn’t possible to say 3 furnitures, 6 rice, 23 flours, etc.
An uncountable noun can be turned into a countable noun by adding a quantifier or a unit of measurement. So for example, you could say 6 pounds or packs of rice/flour, 3 pieces of furniture, etc.
To turn “data” to an uncountable noun, we would add something like 431 kilobytes of data , megabytes, etc.
Source-former ESL teacher.
The fact is ‘data are’ sounds wrong and that’s all there is to it.