Macmillan Holdings, LLC. Grammar Girl, Grammar Girl's, QDnow, and Quick and Dirty Tips are all trademarks of Macmillan Holdings, LLC. People will argue about this one. Mel grammar Hey "Anti-Pedantry" don't be so quick to call someone a dummy when you are the one that looks like an idiot. You said: "you'd be using 2 spaces after you periods,.." you periods??? Now who's the dummy? How ironic! http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/is-data-singular-or-plural.aspx?commentid=21225#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/is-data-singular-or-plural.aspx?commentid=21225#Comments Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:36:07 GMT Anti-Pedantry grammar Hey A-pedantic-so-and-so, did you know that Webster's 3rd definition of pedantic is unimaginitive and pedestrian?! Sounds perfect for you. Reread the last sentence of your link!... even in Britain, use has been reduced to preferred. Are you actually a scientific writer? Join us all in the new millenium. You're half in already, if you were that strict, you'd be using 2 spaces after you periods, NOT ONE! Hahaha. Language evolves just like everything else, dummy. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/is-data-singular-or-plural.aspx?commentid=17627#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/is-data-singular-or-plural.aspx?commentid=17627#Comments Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:10:59 GMT A pedantic so and so grammar I refer you all to: http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutgrammar/data?view=uk Data is plural of Datum, fora of forum and agenda of agendum. It's really quite simple. There's a slight exception in the case of agenda, in that the meaning has changed to refer to a (singular) list of things to discuss; in essence, each of the items on the agenda for your meeting is an agendum, making them agenda, but when referring to the piece of paper as an 'agenda' it's obviously singular. Data are quite simply plural, with no exceptions, singular forms would be a datum (one point), a dataset or a collection of data (a singular reference to a specific set of results). In the scientific press, the use of the word 'data' as if it were a singular is frowned upon. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/is-data-singular-or-plural.aspx?commentid=16528#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/is-data-singular-or-plural.aspx?commentid=16528#Comments Thu, 16 Apr 2009 09:40:40 GMT Clarissa Ceruti grammar when I studied English in Italy 30 years ago, I learned that "furniture" and "information" are plural nouns, and if I want to make them a singular noun, I have to say "a piece of furniture/information." Is this still the case? Examples: The furniture in my house come from Italy. "Oh, that's a nice piece of furniture" I said while admiring the solid oak-wood bookshelf that Sheila has in her living room. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/is-data-singular-or-plural.aspx?commentid=16110#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/is-data-singular-or-plural.aspx?commentid=16110#Comments Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:26:47 GMT Crystal Verran grammar What about "medium" and "media"? When was the usage of media as a mass noun initiated? 19th century? http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/is-data-singular-or-plural.aspx?commentid=15139#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/is-data-singular-or-plural.aspx?commentid=15139#Comments Wed, 10 Dec 2008 03:47:50 GMT Taylor Toner grammar i need info for school home work http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/is-data-singular-or-plural.aspx?commentid=14839#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/is-data-singular-or-plural.aspx?commentid=14839#Comments Wed, 26 Nov 2008 02:10:27 GMT henry grammar This is a good one. Love it. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/is-data-singular-or-plural.aspx?commentid=14658#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/is-data-singular-or-plural.aspx?commentid=14658#Comments Sat, 08 Nov 2008 10:36:59 GMT alex grammar Is you plural or singular? http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/is-data-singular-or-plural.aspx?commentid=14468#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/is-data-singular-or-plural.aspx?commentid=14468#Comments Sun, 26 Oct 2008 23:28:23 GMT Andrew grammar ugg, we gotta do this for school, for a project, so boring, but at least i'm kinda learning. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/is-data-singular-or-plural.aspx?commentid=14300#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/is-data-singular-or-plural.aspx?commentid=14300#Comments Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:08:04 GMT Devon Adams grammar data is plural. datum is singular. I also use words like platypi and campi. We also cringe when people say cactuses. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/is-data-singular-or-plural.aspx?commentid=14280#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/is-data-singular-or-plural.aspx?commentid=14280#Comments Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:53:48 GMT Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:36:07 GMT http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/is-data-singular-or-plural.aspx feedback@quickanddirtytips.com (Managing Editor) feedback@quickanddirtytips.com (Webmaster) en-us