this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2024
200 points (92.7% liked)

Science Memes

11148 readers
2306 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 100 points 1 month ago (3 children)

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 17 points 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 8 points 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.

[–] tulliandar@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

And the word “data” is only one word, so “data is plural”

[–] Semjaza@lemmynsfw.com 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Maybe I'm whooshed, but you understand the concept of uncountable nouns, right?

[–] tulliandar@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The noun I’m referring to is the word “data” not the data themselves. “Data data” is 2 words, “data” is one word. The word (singular) “data” is plural

[–] Semjaza@lemmynsfw.com -2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

In Latin, sure. But the word "datum" isn't a part of English, so we have instead the uncountable noun "data" which is derived from the Latin.

[–] EffortlessEffluvium@lemm.ee 3 points 1 month ago

Datum is indeed a word in English. Singular point of information.