this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2024
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Privacy

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[–] RandomVideos@programming.dev 2 points 9 hours 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?

[–] communism@lemmy.ml 3 points 7 hours 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.

[–] would_be_appreciated@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 hours 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@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours 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