• Ephera@lemmy.ml
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    1 month ago

    As Wiktionary puts it:

    The word data is more often used as an uncountable noun with a singular verb than as a plural noun with singular datum.

    It’s like “hair”. You can hold a single ‘hair’, you can also hold three hairs. But if you’re looking at an entire mane, you ain’t counting, so it’s referred to as “hair” again.

    • AccountMaker@slrpnk.net
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      1 month ago

      Yeah, but for example, IEEE conference paper templates explicitly state “The word ‘data’ is plural, not singilar”. So if you use it with a singular verb you will receive this post in an email and you can only say thank you and change it.

    • averyminya@beehaw.org
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      1 month ago

      The piece of data and the data overall suggest that…

      Over categorization is a lie that only causes more problems. Stop the forcing of categorizing things. Just let things exist.