Singular or plural? 11:09 Dec 24, 2011
Re Just Opera's comment on Lara's answer, the reference provided is not to the Guardian Style Guide, but to the Datablog. I agree with Telescoper's comment there: '... there are (at least) two distinct uses of the word data. One is clearly of non-count type. This is the use of “data” to describe an undifferentiated unspecified or unlimited quantity of information such as that stored on a computer disk. Of such stuff you might well ask “how much data do you have?” and the answer would be in some units (e.g. Gbytes). This clearly identifies it as a mass noun.
But there is another meaning, which is that ascribed to specified pieces of information either given (as per the original latin verb) or obtained from a measurement. Such things are precisely defined, enumerable and clearly therefore of count-noun form. Indeed one such entity could reasonably be called a datum and the plural would be data. This usage applies when the context defines the relevant quantum of information so no unit is required. This is the usage that arises in most scientific papers, as opposed to software manuals. “In Figure 1, the data are plotted…” is correct.'
Though "data item" is an alternative to datum.
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