At the end of an earlier post, my friend and former boss Rick Lempert touched on a pet peeve of mine: treating "data" as a singular noun (as in, "Our data is...," or "The data suggests..."). "Data," I learned early on in my graduate training, is the plural of "datum," and so is akin to "facts"; the only correct form is therefore the plural ("Our data are...," "The data suggest..."). Any other usage -- including that in a number of posts on this very blog -- is simply wrong.
Sadly, my smug self-satisfaction at relentlessly educating all those singular-data cretins has come to an end. As it happens, the cretins were right; or, at least, they weren't as wrong as I'd thought. Language, as we all know, evolves; the growing consensus is that data is a mass noun, and so admits to a singular usage. In this respect, data is undergoing the same transition that agenda -- formally, the plural of agendum -- underwent a long time ago: Few people I know would say (e.g.) "The meeting's agenda allocate ten minutes for opening statements." My reading of a number of discussions of this issue around the blogosphere also suggests that there is a generational component to the change, with younger folks being more willing to accept -- and in some cases, even argue strenuously for -- data as singular.
So, with a heavy heart, I'll be scratching data-as-singular-noun from my pet-peeve list (which includes, among other things, reporting "p = 0.000" and stating that one's parameter estimates are "significant in the wrong direction"). But with that, a plea: keep treating data as plural anyway. It's still correct, and (in this blogger's opinion) it just sounds better.
"Data"--a singular noun? Never! Are we to bow to every passing fad? Just because times have changed is no reason we should as well. After we get done rewriting the English language, we might as well rename the planets in the heavens . . . . oh, never mind.
Posted by: Bob Lawless | 23 August 2006 at 10:52 AM
I thought about this issue the other day when writing a post, but I went with the plural -- and then changed the sentence -- to minimize the awkwardness. It would be easier just to go with what sounds most natural to the ear, which, I think, is generally the singular form. So here is another link one can attach to the word "data" when using it as a singular noun.
http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutgrammar/data
Posted by: William Ford | 22 August 2006 at 03:38 PM
Chris, When I use data in the plural for the first time, I am going to cite this (damn) post. I am glad to know the proper use. Thanks, bh.
Posted by: William Henderson | 22 August 2006 at 01:21 PM