"Data" as Plural? This Sentence Made Me Cringe
A recent article in the Huffington Post included a sentence that used "data" as a plural noun and sounded so awkward that I thought it was a good example of why sometimes you should either make "data" singular or use a different word:
Although the author was valiantly trying to follow the sometimes-rule that "data" is plural because in Latin it's plural ("datum" is the Latin singular), I was cringing—not a response you want from your readers.
It's easy to come up with better options:
* scientists had few results that allowed correlation
* there was little information that allowed correlation
And, of course, if you're OK with "data" being singular when it's a mass noun (a point I've addressed on my site and in 101 Troublesome Words), you could write "there was little data that allowed correlation."
Scientists are more adamant than nonscientists about keeping "data" plural, so making "data" singular may not have been a good choice for this particular sentence, but since the article was on the Huffington Post, and therefore written for the general public, rewriting the sentence to sound more natural would have been a good choice.
Mignon Fogarty is better known online as Grammar Girl.
"Drought was also considered a possibility, but until about 10 years ago there were few data that allowed correlation of dry periods with the archaeological evidence." (emphasis added)
Although the author was valiantly trying to follow the sometimes-rule that "data" is plural because in Latin it's plural ("datum" is the Latin singular), I was cringing—not a response you want from your readers.
It's easy to come up with better options:
* scientists had few results that allowed correlation
* there was little information that allowed correlation
And, of course, if you're OK with "data" being singular when it's a mass noun (a point I've addressed on my site and in 101 Troublesome Words), you could write "there was little data that allowed correlation."
Scientists are more adamant than nonscientists about keeping "data" plural, so making "data" singular may not have been a good choice for this particular sentence, but since the article was on the Huffington Post, and therefore written for the general public, rewriting the sentence to sound more natural would have been a good choice.
Mignon Fogarty is better known online as Grammar Girl.
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
Sue
(last edited Apr 23, 2012 11:30AM)
(new)
Feb 28, 2012 09:09AM
"Data" as plural has always sounded wrong to me, but I saw it over and over as a math & science major in college. My professors always insisted that "data" be plural. So, when I wrote my labs, I used "data points" to alleviate my own issues.
reply
|
flag
Used that way, it almost becomes a combination singular-plural at the same time. I'm sure he was just trying to sound smart—what a snob! He probably went to college and everything.
My nephew wrote that he was "finally an alumni of Old Dominion U."; I told him to get his money back.
Just to be clear, I'm not saying that it's wrong to treat "data" as plural. I'm saying that sometimes it will sound wrong to the average reader and in those cases, when you're writing for the general public, you can choose another word or treat "data" as singular. If you think "data" can never be singular, I direct you to the article on my site that I linked to in the post.
As an old codger, I learned in high school how to handle singular and plural Latin and Greek. I wrote about television as a medium once, and got confused responses. Contact with several octopi, however, resulted in no confusion at all. To me, one piece of information will always be a datum. The fact that a majority of people make a mistake doesn't make it right. OK, I'm a fussy old codger. It also irritates me when people can't tell the difference between less and fewer.
Logically if datum is single and data plural, why isn't agendum single and agenda plural? They are identical neuter nouns in Latin. The reason is that specialists use "data" and generalists use "agenda". So unless you are writing for specialists, treat "data" like "agenda" - single.
I agree with Grammar Girl's assessment of HuffPo's poor usage on the sentence, although I'm not sure I agree about scientists wanting to keep 'data' plural, at least in the numerical realm. I think numerical-based scientists want 'datum' to disappear from usage ('fact' works just as well) and want 'data' to be treated in the same category as 'information'.Here's my reasoning.
Common usage treats 'data' as a singular fluid, not as plural units. If you went to the store to buy data, you'd buy it in bulk, and not as individual units ("...gonna get me a couple sacks o' data at the data mill"). The fact that 500 years ago 'data' was rooted in 'datum' no longer matters. It's evolved into its own word now and has changed its syntactic type from a non-fluid to a fluid.
Data, Information, Wisdom and Knowledge are all the same syntactic type of word these days, and can usually be substituted for each other (with a concomitant philosophical debate about the difference between the four words).
Another way to look at this is:
- 'Datum' and 'Fact' are the same syntactic type (part of speech). 'A Datum' and 'A Fact' are both OK.
- 'Data' and 'Facts' are the same type (if Data is non-fluid). 'Fewer Data' and 'Fewer Facts' are OK. However, this usage is unconventional and what the HuffPo author used.
- 'Data' and 'Factage' are the same type (if Data is fluid). 'Less Data' and 'Less Factage' are OK. This usage of 'data' is more common, I think.
Admittedly, there is no official word called 'factage'. There is no official English transformation from a singular unit-based word into a singular fluid-based word. However, slang offers us the use of the '-age' suffix (read it the way you read 'mileage' or 'usage'). For example, "There was much chipage that allowed the consumption of salsa and guacamole." or "There was much babeage at that party.". (no offense intended, I was channelling Wayne and Garth).
So I propose the term 'factage' as the analogue of 'data', a singular fluid form that represents a mass of individual facts.
Replacing 'were few data' with 'was little factage' in the original sentence:
"Drought was also considered a possibility, but until about 10 years ago there was little factage that allowed correlation of dry periods with the archaeological evidence."
The above seems OK to me, if you grant 'factage' word status. And now that we're comfortable with 'factage', we can replace it with its analogue 'data':
"Drought was also considered a possibility, but until about 10 years ago there was little data that allowed correlation of dry periods with the archaeological evidence."
And the above sentence is how I think it should have been written in the first place.
Steve wrote: "My nephew wrote that he was "finally an alumni of Old Dominion U."; I told him to get his money back."Hilarious! May I quote this in my college ezine? I will leave pout the name of the university, if you prefer.
