this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2024
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Privacy

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Is data a plural word? I thought it was a word without plural form

If data is plural, does that mean that "the data was stolen" is wrong and "the data were stolen" is right?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

"datum" is the singular, but you're right that it's not really grammatically plural since you'd say "the data was stolen" not "the data were stolen". I think the latter would technically also be valid; my interpretation would be that the latter is "countable" plural, so there are specific discrete datums that were stolen.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

Confusingly, British English actually does treat nouns like "data" and "government" as plural where American English does not. Even more confusingly, they're a little inconsistent with it, so you can find published examples of both.

[–] shneancy 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

it's like a special category of words idk, grammar theory is my weakest point

data can be one point of data, and data can be many points of data