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01-21-05 UPDATE: Stop it. Stop it right now. Don't act all innocent. I'm talking to you people who have started saying "these data". There's a trendy group of idiots who have decided that "data" is plural. They think that they can say "those data" as if data were a herd of reindeer or buffalo. This stems from the fact that "data" is the plural of the Latin word "datum". Some people believe that since we use the word in its plural form, we should account for this in English usage. But it is usage, not dervation, which is important. Data is not plural, data is a fluid; a body of substance we refer to in the singular. This water. This sand. This butter. It is not a concept without precedent in the English language. We do not say "these sand", because sand in composed on many tiny individual grains of sand. Nor should we refer to data in the plural because it is composed of individual bits and bytes. Please people, don't be fooled by poor English! Whoever thought this up is just a dumb oaf trying to start a trend in order to make themselves feel smart. English is mutable, yes, but theory of language is formed from usage, not the other way around. Posted on January 21, 2005 12:00 AM |