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It's Time to End the 'Data Is' vs 'Data Are' Debate (vice.com)

Posted by msmash on from the semantic-bleaching dept.

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.

5 of 248 comments (clear)

  1. like deer and fish, but the other way around by XXongo · · Score: 5, Interesting
    "data" is the plural of "datum", but it's also the singular of "data".

    kinda like "deer" is both the singular of "deer", and also the plural of "deer".

  2. What about hospital? by 110010001000 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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".

    1. Re:What about hospital? by JoeDuncan · · Score: 4, 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...

  3. Re: What debate? Mass vs Count noun by Anonymous Coward · · 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 using data as a mass noun, and I tend to agree.

    Full disclosure: decades ago I was a C student in highschool Latin.

  4. Let's compromise by reboot246 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'll stop saying "data are" when the rest of you stop using plural verbs with collective nouns. The team "IS" winning, not the team "are" winning. Sure, they may say it like that across the pond (the UK), but here (the US) collective nouns are singular and take a singular verb (most of the time - there are a few exceptions).