{"id":42,"date":"2015-09-21T12:42:11","date_gmt":"2015-09-21T02:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/?p=42"},"modified":"2017-03-04T12:36:54","modified_gmt":"2017-03-04T01:36:54","slug":"data-plural-or-singular","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/journal\/notes\/data-plural-or-singular\/","title":{"rendered":"Data: plural or singular?"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>\n  TLDR: Both, but you&#8217;d probably only use the mass noun singular version.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The word <em>data<\/em> is one that causes me a little bit of grief in my professional life. As an editor, I enjoy adding commas here and rearranging sentences there, but the inconsistent use of <em>data<\/em> in my office is causing me to go a little bit batty.<\/p>\n<p>The main problem is that the word is in a transitionary phase, where some industries still cling to the dual-use origins of the word while the greater majority are beginning to drop its plural meaning.<\/p>\n<p>data (count noun)\u2014pieces of information, facts, statistics, assumptions or details that can be individually identified or counted; <em>plural of datum<\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  <em>These data show the struggling condition of the processing plant.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>  <em>Our data are supplied by the company reports.<\/em>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>data (mass noun)\u2014collective information that cannot readily be counted; <em>singular<\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  <em>There is no data on this company.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>  <em>Much of this data is not reliable.<\/em>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>While the word <em>datum<\/em> is only still common in highly technical material, it and its plural <em>data<\/em> are not as commonly used as the singular mass noun <em>data<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>My work involves reading a lot of scientific and technical information (mostly involving geology and commodity manufacturing\/processing); however, the writers of said information appear split on whether they should use one <em>data<\/em> or the other.<\/p>\n<p>The best way to determine which to use is to replace <em>data<\/em> with another word. As the mass noun is singular, we can use <em>information<\/em> and <em>is, has<\/em> and <em>much<\/em>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  <em>There <strong>is<\/strong> simply too <strong>much information<\/strong> to process all at once.<\/em>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Whereas, for the plural <em>data<\/em>, we can replace this with <em>facts<\/em> and <em>are, were\u00a0<\/em>and <em>many<\/em>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  <em><strong>Many<\/strong> of the <strong>facts were<\/strong> surprising.<\/em>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>However, whether you choose to use the plural <em>data<\/em> or the singular mass noun is entirely up to you\u2014unless, of course, you are working with a style guide. Regardless, you must be consistent with whichever option you choose. I personally don\u2019t like the sound of the plural <em>data<\/em>, but when I put my worker hat on, I try to forget about that!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Causing me grief in my professional life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":497,"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions\/497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/carmelsealey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}