研究习作：data is or data are?

xujiajin

xujiajin

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There is adequate historical data about the Sistine Chapel,
whole process much easier, even automating back-ups so that your data is kept fully secure at all times.
are the programs which run on it --; but your data is unique and can not simply be replaced by the
30 A0C easily be gleaned from the vast stores of historic customer data which hotels possess. As a seasoned business traveller

the existing Northumbria Police area where most of the ethnographic data was collected.

But DATA is the plural form of datum etymologically.
 
Both are possible as long as the sing./pl. form is used CONSISTENTLY in the same piece of writing. But some copy editors from publishers prefer to use data as a plural form. It would be interesting to see the distribution of the two variants across registers/genres in a balanced corpus.
 
If I remember it correctly, Widdowson has talked about this phenomenon somewhere. Just as xiaoz said, both are acceptable.
 
回复：研究习作：data is or data are?

Tim Johns's DDL Kibbitzer: Data: singular or plural?

http://www.eisu.bham.ac.uk/johnstf/revis006.htm

(Hope the link still works.)

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Data is the plural form of datum of non-Anglo-Saxon origin. But when an error is repeated by native speakers (spreading from uneducated to educated) sufficiently often, an error becomes an alternative. There are many examples of grey areas also in Chinese.
 
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