From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!floyd!rjs Newsgroups: net.nlang Title: Using data as a singular noun Article-I.D.: floyd.1217 Posted: Fri Feb 25 11:30:32 1983 Received: Sat Feb 26 02:40:09 1983 I was recently informed that a phrase I used in a document was incorrect. I suspect this is true, but I'm not sure about the fix and am therefore soliciting opinions from all you grammarians out there. The phrase I used was "... gathering data as it becomes available from ...". This sounds ok to me, but so do a lot of other grammatically incorrect phrases. The problem is that "data" is plural (of "datum"), so it was suggested that the phrase should read "... gathering data as they become available from ...". But this doesn't really sound like what I wanted to say, although it may well be. Consider the following similar phrases: "... gathering sheep as they become available from ..." "... gathering wheat as it becomes available from ..." "... gathering money as it becomes available from ..." (I'm using examples because I don't know the proper terminology for this stuff). I believe the first and third phrases are correct and suspect the second is also. Although "wheat" and "money" are plural, it's hard to pin down a singular form for them. Can "data" be legitimately used in this form? "Money" is apparently a "mass noun", which is not quite singular or plural. Is there a corresponding word that can be used similarly for "data"? Is "data" a "mass noun"? "Look at all that data." sounds better than "Look at all those data.". Looking forward to your opinions. Robert Snyder floyd!rjs