Some recommend using data as a plural noun in scientific fields and programming languages.

These data are irrelevant to our primary intent.

This datum is irrelevant to our primary intent.

Major style manuals like the Publication Manual are firm with sophisticated rules like datum as singular and data as plural. However, some do not agree about data being an uncountable noun. Now, agendum seems “hypercorrect” and “old-fashioned.” Guardian style guru David Marsh says it’s like the word agenda, which used to be plural for agendum. This instance made the word an acceptable form of the singular mass noun. Every datum lets you track the location of your item.Īs time went by, data became a synonym for the word information.(Referring to more than one datum).ĭatum is a singular Latin noun that means a single piece of information–for example:

(Referring to a collection of information). That means these two examples can be correct: The grammatical rules have evolved from using the singular Latin noun datum to using data for a collection of information. It regards the noun as both singular and plural.Īccording to the Wall Street Journal, many standard dictionaries and books on language now accept data as singular and plural. The dictionary entry from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary states that data is a piece of factual information used as a basis for discussion, reasoning, or calculation. Between this data or these data, it’s these data. In the same way, when choosing between data was or were, the correct form is data were. Data are is the right way to use the noun in a sentence because it’s in plural form.

What is a plural noun