- Joined
- Jun 24, 2024
- Messages
- 795
- Likes
- 1,096
We're veering off the topic of empiracally proving we're hearing music to the vagaries of linguistics... but as Messers Mirriam and Webster note, data is no longer used strictly as a plural of datum. In common usage it is in fact awkward to pair with plural forms. For example: I collected data and then used it to form a hypothesis. For sticklers of the plural nature of data, you would instead have to say: I collected data and then used them to form a hypothesis. The latter is clearly not how people would commonly speak, even if certain style guides might require it. Much like style guides which insist on using an history are wrong. It's a history.Data is plural except when it is used (incorrectly) to mean information.