As far as I'm concerned all three of those corrections are wrong. Is it just me or does everyone else think that the original text, using plural forms, is correct?
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Wednesday, 9 March 2011
Corrections: Singluar versus Plural
Yesterday I received a PDF of page proofs for an article we have been working on getting published for a while (more details when it's actually available). I actually got two PDF files; the proof and a delta file showing linguistic corrections that had been made. Most of the corrections seem reasonable but one class of corrections seems plain wrong to me. Have a look at the following paragraph.
As far as I'm concerned all three of those corrections are wrong. Is it just me or does everyone else think that the original text, using plural forms, is correct?
As far as I'm concerned all three of those corrections are wrong. Is it just me or does everyone else think that the original text, using plural forms, is correct?
Data are definitely plural (datum is singular) so I completely agree with the corrections. Sorry!
(I assumed that the original text was red and the new text was blue)
yes data represents a collection of facts, but a collection of data (i.e. a knowledge base) is a single instance representing multiple things. Given that I think that "The instance data represents facts..." is a much better phrase than "The instance data represent facts...". Try saying the second version out loud and it just sounds plain wrong -- I actually find it difficult to say.
also, looking again at the linguistic corrections I've just spotted that the phrase "there is still much data in which..." has been corrected to read "there are still many data in which..." which suggests that data can be referred to in the plural.
Now I'm really confused as to what they really want!
Surely they're just being consistent - everything they've corrected has been from singular to plural.
I have to agree with Helen. Data is plural. Datum is singular. An item consists. Many items consist.
If you wish to say that 'Knowledge Base data' is singular then it should read 'A Knowledge Base Datum'. If you are referring to a data base then surely it should read 'A Knowledge Base Data Base'. But that seems pleonastic to me.
OKay, looks like I've been over-ruled on this one :)
I can agree that data is plural and that technical the corrections are correct but I still find them horrible to read.
Quoting the OED.....
In Latin data is the plural of datum and historically and in specialized scientific fields, it is also treated as a plural in English, taking a plural verb, as in the data were collected and classified. In modern non-scientific use, however, despite the complaints of traditionalists, it is often not treated as a plural. Instead it is treated as a mass noun, similar to a word like information, which cannot normally have a plural and which takes a singular verb. Sentences such as data was (as well as data were) collected over a number of years are now widely accepted in standard English.
Interesting the only definition of data in the same dictionary is...
data noun [mass noun] facts and statistics collected together for reference or analysis.
This suggests that the mass noun reading is the most common. So while a journal article is probably considered to be in a "specialized scientific field" I can be happy in the knowledge that, in most instances, I can use words that sound right when spoken!
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