They say that every day is a school day and today is no exception. Maybe this is common knowledge for most but I learned that data is actually a plural from the Latin singular datum (in the same way that agenda is the plural of agendum).
Although it has become acceptable in modern language to refer to data as singular its correct usage would be as a plural e.g. “My data were corrupted by the server crash”.
[tags]grammar, language[/tags]
Advertisement
Most interesting. Thanks for the top grammar tip!
By: ben on February 6, 2006
at 2:25 pm
Nice but shouldn’t it be ‘My data WAS corrupted by the server crash’
By: Andy on February 15, 2006
at 3:15 pm
Ignore last post, just though that one through;)
By: Andy on February 15, 2006
at 3:18 pm
Your post indicates that you like words, as I do.
You might be interested in “Scientific Words of the Week” at:
http://ScienitificWords.wordpress.com
By: scientificwords on January 7, 2010
at 1:39 pm