Timelies all!
Happy Birthday sumi!
Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.
Timelies all!
Happy Birthday sumi!
You people were helping. Now you are not.
I need a bonita ! ruling.
I would say that current usage supports "the data is augmented" but if you're writing for a technical and pedantic audience you can get away with "the data are augmented". Who's it for?
New York Times style:
data is acceptable as a singular term for information: The data was persuasive. In its traditional sense, meaning a collection of facts and figures, the noun can still be plural: They tabulate the data, which arrive from bookstores nationwide. (In this sense, the singular is datum, a word both stilted and deservedly obscure.)
AP Style prefers using data as plural, but says it can be treated as a collective noun. Reuters style says singular.
This would be a lot simpler if American English treated collective nouns as plural, like British English.
The word "data" is plural for "datum," as PC said.
I know it gets used as a singular all the time, but that's not correct. It drives me batshit INSANE. But if you're writing for a non-technical, non-scientific audience, the plural will sound weird to them.
So -- depends on your readership.
Data is the plural of datum in Latin. We are not speaking Latin. All kinds of Latin plurals are singular in English. OK, agenda is the only one that comes immediately to mind, but there's one, anyway.
It's a science paper, which will be read by a mixed audience of scientists and laypersons.
Data is the plural of datum in Latin. We are not speaking Latin.
I don't think that reasoning will fly with the AMA Style Guide.
Like I said, depends on the audience.
It's a science paper, which will be read by a mixed audience of scientists and laypersons.
I'd make it plural, then. Even if it sounds weird to you.