- cross-posted to:
- privacyguides@lemmy.one
- cross-posted to:
- privacyguides@lemmy.one
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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?
“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.
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.
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
