• @communism@lemmy.ml
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    fedilink
    31 month ago

    “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
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      fedilink
      English
      11 month 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.