Karin Ciano, The Daily Record Newswire
In case you missed it, the Civil Law Committee of the Minnesota House of Representatives recently weighed in on the ongoing controversy about whether the word data is singular or plural. Rep. John Lesch, DFL-St. Paul, proposed amending a bill to change “data are” to “data is.” The Star Tribune reported that the amendment passed unanimously.
What gives?
The word data is evolving. In Modern American Usage, Bryan Garner describes data as a “skunked term” — a word undergoing change, prompting one group of people (grammar nerds) to insist on the traditional usage, while a second group (everyone else) embraces the new usage. We skunk a word by using it incorrectly — sometimes by deliberately experimenting, but more often when we misunderstand how to use the word properly and don’t have time to check. Enough of us mess it up and the word begins to take on a second meaning.
Let’s begin our analysis of data with some basic reminders. First, we care about whether a noun is singular or plural (also known as the noun’s “number”) because that choice determines whether the noun takes a verb that’s singular (“is”) or plural (“are”). Singular goes with singular, and plural with plural — also known as “subject-verb agreement.” Subject-verb agreement is one of English grammar’s real rules: When it’s broken, readers can tell.
Now you’ll recall English typically makes a singular noun plural by adding the letter “s” to the end, a distinction that’s easy to spot. But we know there are also irregular nouns that turn plural without using an “s”, and these include a diverse family of nouns that migrated over from Latin, where a plural was indicated by “a”. The word data is one of these (see also media, candelabra, et cetera*).
Data began as a plural, and, back in the day when Latin roamed the classroom, was consistently treated as such. But around the time of the Second World War something happened — exactly what is anyone’s guess. We stopped studying Latin and forgot its rules of grammar, or we started building computers and brought data from the convent of science into the wild party of everyday speech. Or we just wanted to sound smart or trendy. Whatever the cause, a few generations ago, people started saying “data is,” and data took on a secondary meaning as a collective singular noun. Although collective nouns indicate a group of people or things, they behave like singular nouns (as in “the jury is out,” “the class is going to graduate,” or “the team is having a great season”). At least they do in the United States — in British English, collective nouns often take plural verbs. Go figure.
OK, you may be thinking, if the word data is plural, what’s the real singular? That would be… datum. Seriously. Quick show of hands… who else knew that without having to look it up? And how many of us are or soon will be eligible for AARP membership? Garner advises (and I agree) that “in nonscientific contexts, datum is likely to sound pretentious.” (Agenda was once the plural of agendum, and I can’t tell you how much that knowledge has improved my social life.)
Everyday speech has long since embraced data as a collective noun, but purists still carry a candle for the plural form, and some authorities hedge their bets to avoid offending anyone. The Chicago Manual of Style (16th) is among the hedgers, noting that data is “now commonly treated as a mass noun and coupled with a singular verb” but that in “formal writing (and always in the sciences), use data as a plural.” (Yet even among scientists, the plural may be in decline, as cognitive scientist Steven Pinker notes in his recent book The Sense of Style.)
The result of this hedging is that many of us appreciate that data ought to be plural — but fewer and fewer of us have the guts to use it that way, especially in everyday speech. So the word continues to trend collective and singular, until even those who recognize the difference feel a little embarrassed to point it out. One of my sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, knows perfectly well that the word data is plural, but recognizes that “if someone says ‘data are’ … it’s kind of like saying ‘an historical.’ You know they’re a fuss-pot.” Even Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the court in Riley v. California (last year’s opinion about warrantless searches of mobile phones) largely avoided the issue by not allowing data to become the subject of sentences—but when it did, it took a singular verb. See 134 S.Ct. 2473, 2487 (2014) (“data becomes encrypted”).
We can all agree that the primary goal of writing is clarity. No problem there; since most of us are using data as a collective noun anyway, “data is” is perfectly clear. Yet writing has a second goal: to avoid distraction. Many of us remember that the word data is technically plural. We can’t forget what we know, so when we see data act singular, we notice. “[W]hether you write data are or data is,” observes Garner, “you’re likely to make some readers raise their eyebrows.” Or seethe with resentment and shake our withered fists in the air, cursing the impudence of youth. Legislature, this is not the reaction you want to inspire in otherwise law-abiding citizens.
A better option, if you can take it: Grab the thesaurus and find a word we all agree on. (My pick would be information, which is consistently understood to be singular.) “Perhaps 50 years from now — maybe sooner, maybe later,” Garner writes, data “will no longer be skunked: everybody will accept it as a collective. But not yet.” Indeed.
*Bonus track: The word criteria is also a plural, but of what? The singular is criterion (Greek, not Latin, just to keep it interesting for the fans). Criterium, the Latinized form, actually derives from French, and indicates a bike race on a closed course over city streets.
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Karin Ciano is owner of Karin Ciano Law PLLC and director of Twin Cities Custom Counsel PLLC. Contact her at karinciano.com.
