Language Module

As a kind of followup to yesterday’s post - I notice that today on PrawfsBlog there is a post about whether to use “data” and “media” with plural agreement. Prawfs comes down firmly on the side of singular agreement - which I personally applaud.

‘Media’ and ‘data’ are mass nouns expressing uncountable quantities. When used as such – and they almost always are – they should be paired with the singular form of verbs. That’s my view, at any rate. And I’d say it’s well accepted.

Here’s the hitch. I’d been saying “data is” and “media is” all my life until I got to gradschool, and then I was suddenly surrounded by people who use them prescriptively. It’s gotten to the point that I find myself actually saying “data are” naturally. And by “naturally” I mean not completely naturally because I always do a kind of inner doubletake when I catch myself at it. So it’s definitely something bolted on top of my real grammar, but nevertheless something I say without thinking.

As for “media are,” that’s just British, and I seriously hope that one never slips out (though I do hear it all the time around here).

The interesting question is - how many other people come to academic circles and start saying “data are” just to conform? At what point does it become a critical mass, such that it’s actually native for this register? How many of the people that I’ve picked this up from also started out saying “data is” and then gradually found “data are” constructions slipping out, to the point where now they are, in effect, speakers of a “data are” dialect?

I’m guessing the answer to this last question is “quite a lot.” And I’m guessing that further means that this still counts as a prescriptive change rather than an actual register shift for that reason. And I’m thinking that I’ve just dedicated my life to saying “data is” in polite circles.

As for whether “data are” counts as an example of where prescriptivism helps by making language more precise. I don’t really think so, no. I mean, on the one hand it does, because it tends to emphasize that we’re talking about a collection of data points, each of which is a fact in itself, and so for that reason I suppose one could argue that there is apt to be less confusion about the conclusiveness of data. That is, if you think of data as always and only plural, then you’re less likely to make the mistake of thinking of it as a monolithic thing and more likely to keep in mind that conclusions are abstractions over a mass of evidence. Fine. But on the other hand, any researcher worth his salt should be able to keep this in mind without having to tinker with the language to manipulate himself into it. Fixing this perception is the responsibility of introductory methods classes, not standard English useage. Now, one could argue that it’s nevertheless important that the language lay bare its semantics. And that’s true, up to a point. But there’s also something to be said for grammatical consistency. The truth is that in American English we are largely in the habit of treating collective entities in exactly the way PrawfBlog suggests we treat “data.” We say “Congress is unpopular” without any confusion on the point that some individual Senators may well be popular, in contrast to their colleagues - or that opprobrium may be focused on the House more than the Senate. But the decisive thing here for me is the stiltedness of “datum.” It’s all very well to insist that “data” is plural if you’re in the habit of using its singular form. But so very few people are - and certainly I’m not one of them. Like most people, I feel more comfortable talking about a “data point” or a “piece of data” than I do a “datum.” In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I’ve never used the word “datum” in my life. Worse than that, when I consult my language competence I find that I am capable of saying “datums” - as in “the datums in this cluster are closer together than the datums in that one.” No, it doesn’t sound completely natural and no, I would never, ever actually use that with a straight face. But the point is that it doesn’t sound any more ridiculous to me than just saying “well, one datum that I saw said…” Meaning that “datum” isn’t really a word that I’ve internalized. Meaning, in turn, that I don’t have a singular form of the supposedly-plural “data.” Meaning that when I want to talk about a singular “data” I do it in the way that I normally singularize a mass/collective - by using a countable construction containing that “plural.” Conclusion: “data” is not a standard plural for me, and it is only because I’ve been hanging around pretentious academics that I’ve learned to use it that way.

I REPENT!