Björn Vrooman Apr 21, 2016:

Ha ha, I was tempted to ask. Thank you for the article. It is well worth reading. Had a feeling that's what it came down to.

I will recommend Fowler's here. I suspect he would have liked Pullum.

Charles Davis Apr 21, 2016:

A Freudian slip Strunk, not Skunk. Sorry about that.

Charles Davis Apr 21, 2016:

@Björn Here's Geoffrey Pullum, who is actually a linguist, letting Skunk and White have it with both barrels:

"The book's toxic mix of purism, atavism, and personal eccentricity is not underpinned by a proper grounding in English grammar. It is often so misguided that the authors appear not to notice their own egregious flouting of its own rules ... It's sad. Several generations of college students learned their grammar from the uninformed bossiness of Strunk and White, and the result is a nation of educated people who know they feel vaguely anxious and insecure whenever they write however or than me or was or which, but can't tell you why."
"50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice", The Chronicle of Higher Education (2009).
http://chronicle.com/article/50-Years-of-Stupid-Grammar/2549...

The whole article is very entertaining and well worth a look.

Björn Vrooman Apr 21, 2016:

@Neil "On the other hand, Strunk and White did say in their book, The Elements of Style, that you shouldn't start a sentence with however when you mean 'nevertheless' or 'but.'[...]In these examples, however is acting as a connector. It’s providing a transition from the previous sentence to the next sentence.

I know many of you revere Strunk and White, but this is one instance in which nearly all modern style guides have decided that the classic advice is unreasonable. The modern style guides don’t call starting a sentence with however an error."
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/starting-...

Just one of several examples. I must admit, though, I was never particularly fond of Strunk & White to begin with.

Charles Davis Apr 21, 2016:

It's what the great Ernest Gowers called "a faintly lingering superstition" (he was actually referring to the idea that you shouldn't begin a sentence with "and"). Some people invent these pseudo-rules, apparently to keep themselves in a job.

Charles Davis Apr 21, 2016:

@Neil (Pardon me for butting in as usual.) There isn't one, but some people seem to think there is :)

Neil Ashby Apr 21, 2016:

What's the problem with starting a sentence with "however"?

Björn Vrooman Apr 21, 2016:

If I recall correctly, the same could be said about starting a sentence with "however." In any case, I believe Alfred has been presented with enough information to decide on his own.

Have a sunny day (no issue in Spain right now, I assume)!

Charles Davis Apr 21, 2016:

Oh, and while we're about it... There's also singular they. I bet we'll have another go at that some day soon.

Charles Davis Apr 21, 2016:

I have been trying to resist the temptation to mention split infinitives, because I knew it would be asking for trouble. And please let's save them for another day. But there is something in common between that issue and this. I confess that I generally try to avoid splitting infinitives, not because I think it's wrong to do so (I don't) but because of a combination of long, ingrained habit and the knowledge that so many people do still think it's wrong. Here, even if you think data can be singular, or that it really is singular and the plural is archaic, pedantic or plain wrong, you still might use the plural, or advise people to do so, in order not to risk offending some "professor" who thinks the singular is wrong. This is cowardly, really, but it saves having to hold an argument you would rather avoid.

By the way, I started here by saying that data is like majority, but that's not a very good analogy. Better ones are probably news and politics. It's perhaps worth reflecting on how those words behave.

Björn Vrooman Apr 21, 2016:

@Charles Thanks, Charles. And I take your point. Just to add something I didn't mention earlier:
If you search for "datum," etymonline will only show the following:
"datum (n.)
proper Latin singular of data (q.v.)."

There is no mention of a proper English plural; in contrast to "data," there is also no date given (in case of the former, it was "1640s," as shown below).

I'll add the Forbes link too (Ramey linked the Guardian article on it):
http://www.forbes.com/sites/naomirobbins/2012/07/25/is-the-w...

There's a reference to Grammar Girl in this one as well.

I think the grammarist should have the final say:
"How lost is the cause? Using Google’s various search tools, we find that there are about four instances of 'data is' for every 'data are' overall on the web. The ratio is about 6:1 in newswriting from this century and about 3:1 in published books from this century. 'Data are' still has the edge in scholarly writing (where the ratio is practically 1:1)..."
http://grammarist.com/usage/data/

Looking forward to our next discussion - I bet it'll be about split infinitives :)

Charles Davis Apr 21, 2016:

I am sorry to see the AMA making the common error of confusing collective and mass nouns, but nobody's perfect :) However, the AMA's tolerant attitude to singular data is highly relevant here.

Charles Davis Apr 21, 2016:

@Björn As you say, here we go again.

I've had my say on this already, but I would like to add a reference to one of the more cogent discussions I've found on this question. It is robustly pro-singular:
http://nxg.me.uk/note/2005/singular-data/

I've already claimed that it is barely true to say that data is the plural of datum, as you have quoted Oxford as saying. I suspect that datum is effectively a back-formation; having convinced themselves that data must be plural, given its Latin origin, people co-opted a singular. The piece just cited points out that the OED marks datum (though not, of course, data) as "not naturalized, alien". As I've already said, it apparently entered English (or at least is first attested) much later than "data".

Björn Vrooman Apr 21, 2016:

Frequency and AMA Macmillan keeps record of how many times a word is used. Compare datum and data:
http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/datum
http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/data

Three stars for "data," none(!) for "datum."

Brians agrees: "'Datum' is so rare now in English that people may assume 'data' has no singular form."

As we're talking about a medical paper here, the AMA Manual of Style says:
"Also, many now consider acceptable the use of data as a singular. In this usage, data is thought of as a collective noun and, when considered as a unit rather than as the individual items of data"
http://www.amamanualofstyle.com/browse?pageSize=10&sort=titl...

That's exactly what I was taught and what could be said of the asker's sentence as well. So the old saying once again:
- Follow the guidelines or manual of style you were supposed to.
- Have an explanation ready if there is no agreed-upon style guide.
- Be consistent.

Björn Vrooman Apr 21, 2016:

UK/US The interesting thing now is the scientific use.

Oxford says:
"In Latin, data is the plural of datum and, historically and in specialized scientific fields, it is also treated as a plural in English, taking a plural verb, as in the data were collected and classified."
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/data

Paul Brians, however, says (in his book on US usage):
"Many American usage communities, however, use 'data' as a singular and some have even gone so far as to invent 'datums' as a new plural. This is a case where you need to know the patterns of your context. An engineer or scientist used to writing 'the data is' may well find that the editors of a journal or publishing house insist on changing this phrase to 'the data are.' Usage is so evenly split in this case that there is no automatic way of determining which is right, but writers addressing an international audience of nonspecialists would probably be safer treating 'data' as plural."
http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/data.html

See the difference?

Björn Vrooman Apr 21, 2016:

After two discussions on metric units, this is the third heated debate in a short time!

One of my favorite explanations, Charles, goes as follows:
Data is/are information, but information only "is."

In one of my fields, "data" is usually treated as singular - no wonder, the field is called Information Technology.

The data is retrieved from / the information is retrieved from...
The data is copied to / the information is copied to...

Hardly noticeable difference.

The etymology dictionary I used during my language studies seems to concur:
data (n.) Look up data at Dictionary.com
"1640s, plural of datum, from Latin datum "(thing) given," neuter past participle of dare "to give" (see date (n.1)). Meaning "transmittable and storable computer information" first recorded 1946. Data processing is from 1954."
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&searc...

So does Oxford, at least partially:
"In modern non-scientific use, however, it is generally not treated as a plural. Instead, it is treated as a mass noun, similar to a word like information, which takes a singular verb."
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/data

Chris Ellison Apr 20, 2016:

Grammar evolves... If I was/were you, I'd check their age as well as their language variant. I hypothesise more youthful=sloppier/more evolved grammar, innit guv. ;o) Take your pick and go split an infinitive if you're feeling daring.

Sorry for the innit, innit. Just couldn't resist, innit. It's like trying on a perfickly loverly new dress... ;o)

Innit. ;o)

Charles Davis Apr 20, 2016:

@Ramey It's an interesting question. From what I know of those who have posted agrees both the BE (UK and Ireland) and the AE (US and Canada) native speakers are more or less evenly divided, though not many AE native speakers have expressed a view either way.

I may be wrong but I don't think treating data as singular is particularly characteristic of American English. Phil, who finds the plural pedantic, is British, though he's lived in the US for some time. The Guardian newspaper, which is something of a barometer of educated British usage, has come down firmly in favour of "data is". There are conservative speakers on both sides of the Atlantic.

My guess is that a lot of the people here accept both and perhaps use the singular in everyday situations but feel that the plural is more suitable in a scientific article, though some may feel that the singular is inherently less correct. But I would say that most British and Irish speakers these days normally treat data as singular.

Ramey Rieger (X) Apr 20, 2016:

@Neil Oh DEAR! A lovely faux pas! I'd still like to know, though. And if you speak a dialect or two, well....

Neil Ashby Apr 20, 2016:

Ramey British or English - if I'm from Britain and speak English do I speak both languages, British and English ;@) Just pulling your leg.

Ramey Rieger (X) Apr 20, 2016:

It would be interesting to know if you are looking for British English or American English here. How many agrees for 'suggest' are BE native speakers, and how many are AE native speakers? I'm just curious.

Charles Davis Apr 20, 2016:

Datum The widespread idea that data is the plural of datum, which is obviously true in Latin, is pretty questionable in English. Datum came into English much later than data and remains rare, even in academic contexts, as a way of referring to a single fact, result, observation or piece of information. And in its geometric or geodesic sense of a reference, its plural is datums, not data.

Charles Davis Apr 20, 2016:

Many examples of "our data suggests that" can be found in medical articles. There are more examples of "our data suggest that", but the difference is not overwhelming. It is not true that "data" is never, or even rarely, treated as singular in this type of text; on the contrary, it's quite common (much more so than I was expecting).

Charles Davis Apr 20, 2016:

I think data is like majority. It is a mass noun, but it can generate singular or plural agreement, depending on whether you're thinking of it as a body of information (a data set) or as a set of pieces of information (or data points). So I'm with Chris. I do think it's a mass noun; the etymological argument that it is plural in Latin is not decisive, and the word fails normal tests of countability. I confess that I was taught to treat it as plural and still feel uncomfortable using it as a singular noun. Most people seem to feel the opposite. But it is perhaps worth noting that ever since the word was introduced its number has been in doubt; indeed, "datas" is found very early on. So it's not true that "data is" represents an ignorant modern departure from a classical consensus of plurality.

In practice, in a medical article, if you want to be sure of not upsetting a professor, the safer option is "our data show". I would guess that this predominates in the articles in Nature, though I'm not at all surprised to see "the data shows" in a news piece. But in principle, if you mean "our data set shows", there's nothing wrong with "our data shows".

Neil Ashby Apr 20, 2016:

@ asker If you know which journal the paper will be published in then you can check their guidelines. However, I think it all comes down to a line referenced by Cilian:

"The plural construction is more common in print, evidently because the house style of several publishers mandates it."
- most publishers, being fairly learned in these matters, demand the use of the plural form. That says it all for me; a medical article is not reporting the news to a wider audience but science to scientists.

Chris Ellison Apr 20, 2016:

From Nature (a trustworthy source?) News in brief : Article : Nature - Nature Publishing Group
www.nature.com › ... › Archive › News in Brief

... the US Food and Drug Administration will not require new trials of a combined pill, provided the data shows that mixing the drugs does not interfere with their ...

Third person singular here...

Jonathan MacKerron Apr 20, 2016:

Generally speaking nowadays "data is" still tends to raise more eyebrows than does "data are"

Chris Ellison Apr 20, 2016:

This is one ...of the most controversial points in scientific writing.

Personally, I always assess whether the word means "information" or "datum points" - both are possible within the same article.
These days editors will accept both as long as they are logical and consistent.

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/jul/16/data-pl...