[tz] [PATCH] The word "data" is plural.

lennox at cs.columbia.edu lennox at cs.columbia.edu
Wed Aug 13 09:26:36 UTC 2014


The English word "data" is absolutely not (exclusively) plural in 21st
century English.

It was exclusively plural at some point in the past, and that sense is still
available (though a bit archaic) when talking about individual data points,
but that's not the usual sense in computing, and not the sense used in the
text files this patch edits.

"Data" in its most common current English usage is a non-countable (mass)
noun, like "water".  I.e. you'd say "I have too much data, I need less," not
*"I have too many data, I need fewer."  Such nouns take singular verb
forms.

The Latin word "data" is indeed the plural of "datum", but that's a
different language.

On Tuesday, August 12 2014, "Paul Eggert" wrote to "tz at iana.org" saying:

> ---
>  NEWS         | 10 +++++-----
>  Theory       |  4 ++--
>  africa       |  2 +-
>  asia         |  7 +++----
>  australasia  |  2 +-
>  europe       |  2 +-
>  newctime.3   |  2 +-
>  northamerica |  2 +-
>  southamerica |  2 +-
>  tzfile.5     |  6 +++---
>  zic.8        |  2 +-
>  11 files changed, 20 insertions(+), 21 deletions(-)

-- 
Jonathan Lennox
lennox at cs.columbia.edu


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