These information

Question

Professor pointing to a slide filled with figures and charts: These information ...Is it OK to say "These information"?Thanks in advance!

Annvan · Accepted Answer

Should be "This information".

Yoong Liat · Answer

New2grammarProfessor pointing to a slide filled with figures and charts: These information ...

Is it OK to say "These information"?

As Annvan says, it should be "This information". "Information" is an uncountable noun.

Loojka · Answer

I'd say 'These information'. I might be mistaken, but I think 'information' is a mass noun, or whatever it is called, and it can be made singular by using the expression 'a piece of information'. To me it sounds similar to 'data', but 'data' has its singular form, which is 'datum'.

BarbaraPA · Answer

Information is not like data.

Data is a plural noun; information is a non-count noun. "These information" is incorrect.

Anonymous · Answer

LoojkaI'd say 'These information'. I might be mistaken, but I think 'information' is a mass noun, or whatever it is called, and it can be made singular by using the expression 'a piece of information'. To me it sounds similar to 'data', but 'data' has its singular form, which is 'datum'.

It can be made singular by using the expression 'a piece of information'. This shows that 'information' is an uncountable noun. To make an uncountable noun plural, we can use 'piece'. In this case, we are counting 'piece'. Similarly, we can say " ... a piece of news, etc...'

Clive · Answer

Hi,

We also often talk about 'some information'.

eg Fred, I need some information.

Best wishes, Clive

Yoong Liat · Answer

Loojka wrote: To me it sounds similar to 'data', but 'data' has its singular form, which is 'datum'.

datum is sometimes used as the singular form of data.

You can refer to information as data, especially when it is in the form of facts or statistics that you can analyse.
In AmE, data is usually a plural noun. In technical or formal BrE, data is sometimes a plural noun, but at other times it is an uncount noun;
The study was based on data from 2,100 women, ... the latest year for which data is available... To cope with these data, hospitals bought many large mainframe computers.

Hoa Thai · Answer

Hello,

I was made fun of by an American colleague when I talked about data retrieval from a database system. He told me that, "we enter data into, but retrieve information from the database system."

- datum (countable): raw fact; data (pl).
- information (uncountable): is derived from data. In other words, information is processed data.

Decision making is based on information not data. Very often, data is used as a singular, as in This data is old, and means a coherent collection of bits of information; as a plural, it means the bits of information themselves.

Best Regards,
Hoa Thai

New2grammar · Answer

Thank you, everyone!

BarbaraPA · Answer

Anyone who made fun of you for saying "data" instead of "information" is severely lacking in manners as well as common sense and is more concerned about being "right" than being accurate. If you retrieve a specific piece of information - one little fact - I consider that a bit of "data."

I hope you are able to ignore jerks like that.

Yes, data is often used as a singular in the US -- more and more so. I personally find "These data have now been entered" to sound odd, but I recognize it as correct.

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