Stardate 20010718.1111 (Crew, this is the Captain): I HATE it when I read "The data are..." It makes me cringe. I'm aware that the word
data comes from Latin and that it is the plural of
datum but we
aren't speaking Latin, and in English the word
data is a collective singular name for a quantity, linguistically comparable to the words
money, fire and
evidence. You don't say "how many water are there?" or "How many evidence are there?" do you? You say "How
much water
is there? How
much evidence
is there?"
Data is a muchness, not a manyness, and muchnesses are singular.
Aaargh!!{This has been a test of the emergency rant system. Had this been an actual rant, your monitor would have melted.} (discuss)
