OK, following on our psychological displacement:
The examples Pheobe gave are mostly of collective nouns
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_noun
to be distinguished from mass nouns:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_noun
Strictly speaking, data is not a collective noun and is the plural of datum. Use of singular form is accepted nowadays but it doesn't mean that it's correct. To quote Merriam-webster: ..."Data leads its own life independent of datum"...
See:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/data
And by the way, what do you answer to "how much data did you collect"? A lot? just a little?
Had we asked: "how complete is your data"? "how many frames did you collect"? "How many data sets"? wouldn't we have got a much more informative answer?
Boaz
Most crystallographers use the word "data" as a mass noun - that is, the syntax
of "data" follows that of "gravel" or "mud", not that of "pebble/pebbles". People
who pounce on the phrase "data is" routinely say "data collection" and "data
processing". But note that the proper way to construct compound nouns such as
those is to use the singular form - one would never say "rocks collection" or
"apples picking". So if we have to say "data are" then we should be discussing
how (not) to fabricate a "datum set". Also note that when people come back
from the synchrotron, we ask "how much data did you collect" not "how many".
"Much" is generally used with mass nouns.
That doesn't mean we can't ALSO use the word as one with discrete singular and
plural forms, especially when we have a few, individual observations rather than
a huge pile that blurs into an aggregate. In that case, I see nothing incorrect
about discussing an individual datum and using "data" as the plural form.
Sometimes it is the artificial, over-simplified rule that is stupid, not the native
speakers of a language.
=====================================
Phoebe A. Rice
Dept. of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
The University of Chicago
phone 773 834 1723
http://bmb.bsd.uchicago.edu/Faculty_and_Research/01_Faculty/01_Faculty_Alp
habetically.php?faculty_id=123
http://www.rsc.org/shop/books/2008/9780854042722.asp
Boaz Shaanan, Ph.D.
Dept. of Life Sciences
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Beer-Sheva 84105
Israel
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Phone: 972-8-647-2220 Skype: boaz.shaanan
Fax: 972-8-647-2992 or 972-8-646-1710
