Data is vs. Data are

Question

Greetings:Which of the following sentences is more correct?:Sentence 1: Their data is being fed into the computer.Sentence 2: Their data are being fed into the computer.Because data is the plural form of datum, I first thought that the "are" verb form in senttence 1 was correct. Yet, when I sound out these two sentences in my head, the "is" form in sentence 1 sounds more correct.Is one more correct than another? Or can it go either way, depending upon the personal preference of the writer?Any insights on this would be appreciated. Thanks.Dennis

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Starcap 50 wrote on 14 Nov 2004:
[nq:1]Greetings: Which of the following sentences is more correct?: Sentence 1: Their data is being fed into the computer. ... go either way, depending upon the personal preference of the writer? Any insights on this would be appreciated. Thanks.[/nq]
They are both used and are both considered correct by enough people of sufficient distinction dubious and otherwise that the only person who knows for sure is your thesis advisor, your editor, or your publisher. Normal people don't have to worry about such things. Especially when the answers to such questions are always contradictory and ambiguous.

Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor
For email, replace numbers with English alphabet.

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"Dennis" asks:
[nq:1]Sentence 1: Their data is being fed into the computer. Sentence 2: Their data are being fed into the computer. Is one more correct than another?[/nq]
Sentence 1 is by far the more common usage today, as these Google phrase search counts illustrate:
"data is being fed" 429
"data are being fed" 54
In sentence 1, "data" is used as a mass noun and construed as singular even though it is a plural in its original language, just like "spaghetti". In this usage, if you want to refer to a single fact or number among all the ones that constitute the data, you speak of a "data item" or "data point".
In sentence 2, "data" is construed as the plural of "datum".
[nq:1]Or can it go either way, depending upon the personal preference of the writer?[/nq]
Yes there are still some people who refuse to accept the mass noun use as legitimate, and require sentence 2. The rest of us consider this antiquated and use sentence 1.

Mark Brader, Toronto > "The singular of 'data' is not 'anecdote.'" (Email Removed) > Jeff Goldberg

My text in this article is in the public domain.

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[nq:1]"Dennis" asks:[/nq]
[nq:2]Or can it go either way, depending upon the personal preference of the writer?[/nq]
[nq:1]Yes there are still some people who refuse to accept the mass noun use as legitimate, and require sentence 2. The rest of us consider this antiquated and use sentence 1.[/nq]
And everyone else accepts that both a valid, but tend to prefer sentence 1, except when writing in particular contexts where sentence 2 would be the norm, or stipulated by style guides. Certainly scientists (of the non-computer type) seem to prefer the strictly plural form.

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We seem to use the plural of Latin words when using them as adjectives, whereas we use the singular of an English word:

The receiver is now ready to accept the data stream. *The receiver is now ready to accept the datum stream. The media vans with their transmitters were evident. *The medium vans with their transmitters were evident. He shook the dice cup.
*He shook the die cup.
Put the receipts in the shoe box.
*Put the receipts in the shoes box.
Put them on the shoe tree.
*Put them on the shoes tree.
She got a new hope chest.
*She got a new hopes chest.
Dust all of the light switches.
*Dust all of the lights switches.
Put them in Julie's candy cup.
?Put them in Julie's candies cup.
Or is this just for some Latin words with certain endings? My guess is that for foreign words we (including those who make a distinction for nouns) just use the form
encountered most often, which is usually the plural, but sometimes the singular (aquarium, ...).
We do have
Put them on the clothes line.
but that may be because we sound like we have a bad cold when we say
Put them on the clothes line.
Probably someone has already made sense of this,
so just point the way.
Richard Maurer To reply, remove half
Sunnyvale, California of a homonym of a synonym for also.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Greetings: Which of the following sentences is more correct?: Sentence 1: Their data is being fed into the computer. ... one more correct than another? Or can it go either way, depending upon the personal preference of the writer?[/nq]
No. Yes.

Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Greetings: Which of the following sentences is more correct?: Sentence 1: Their data is being fed into the computer. ... one more correct than another? Or can it go either way, depending upon the personal preference of the writer?[/nq]
"Data are" is historically correct, but "data is" is probably the majority choice these days.
I stick stubbornly to "data are", but in your particular example I would probably fudge by saying "The data set is being fed" assuming I didn't get rid of the passive voice with "The computer is reading the data" or "Keyboarders are entering the data."

Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA http://oakroadsystems.com/
"And if you're afraid of butter, which many people are nowa- days, (long pause) you just put in cream." Julia Child

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[nq:1]Sentence 1 is by far the more common usage today, as these Google phrase search counts illustrate: "data is being fed" 429 "data are being fed" 54[/nq]
In a world where the majority of people are wrong about so many other things, I am not sure that we want our own usage to be guided by a majority opinion in matters of language.

Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA http://oakroadsystems.com/
"And if you're afraid of butter, which many people are nowa- days, (long pause) you just put in cream." Julia Child

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[nq:2]Sentence 1 is by far the more common usage today, ... "data is being fed" 429 "data are being fed" 54[/nq]
[nq:1]In a world where the majority of people are wrong about so many other things, I am not sure that we want our own usage to be guided by a majority opinion in matters of language.[/nq]
Language is wot language does, innit?

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Which of the following sentences is more correct?: Sentence 1: Their data is being fed into the computer. Sentence 2: Their data are being fed into the computer.[/nq]
It depends. Correctness reflects context.
You might want to do to data what you do to media. Here's what the New York Times did to the latter yesterday (sec. 9, p. 16):

Although the news media sometimes describe
insomnia as epidemic, that is imprecise.

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[nq:2]Sentence 1 is by far the more common usage today, ... "data is being fed" 429 "data are being fed" 54[/nq]
[nq:1]In a world where the majority of people are wrong about so many other things, I am not sure that we want our own usage to be guided by a majority opinion in matters of language.[/nq]
True enough, and I agree, but things don't seem to be going that way. Do we want to die as martyrs defending "correct" language? Gosh, I don't know. Sometimes it is best to go with the flow, as one really can't "win", right? There are usages that were wrong relatively recently, but now they are the norm.
I have previously said that our language is surely being "dumbed down", but that is from the viewpoint of someone who is in his early seventies, and I have been chastised for that view. So be it. The middle of the road is where it's at.

Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/

Data is vs. Data are

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