Singular or Plural?

Here’s the passage. I’ll put the words I’m writing about in bold.

The results show that during 2014 to 2018, about half the amount of warm water travelling northwards towards the Arctic Ocean actually flows though the Rockall Trough.

Historical data from the region suggest that this is not always the case, with more water flowing through the Iceland Basin to the west in other years. 

NationalOceanographyCentre@public.govdelivery.com newsletter for September 25, 2020, referring to https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020JC016403

(“Travelling” has two l’s because the National Oceanography Centre is in England.)

So should “data” be singular or plural? Technically, the word is a plural (the singular is “datum”). You mainly see the word used as a plural in scientific writing, I suppose because they like to be technically correct and they use Latin a lot. But “data” refers to a group of um, datums, and “group” is singular. So in informal writing, you can get away with using “data” as a singular.

But use “data” as a plural if you want to be really really correct.

Here’s a picture of the data-collecting instrument:

PS—I could have said “data points” or “results” instead of “datums.” “Datums” is funnier.

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Normally we say that you use “few” for things you count, and “less” for things you measure. See the last two panels.

The clue that he’s counting emissions is that he used the plural. Plural can mean you’re counting even if you’re not.

I could have named this post “Positive or Comparative?” and I’ve mentioned this in the past. Do a search in the upper right corner to see earlier posts.

The rule has to do with putting “-er” or “-est” at the end of an adjective. The rule is below the quote.

An author of the new Venus study told me that she’s come to the uneasy conclusion that Occam’s razor — the principle that given two conclusions the simplest one is usually correct — points to phosphine being created by life, not unknown geochemistry on Venus.

https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-space-ba9f4735-4119-4364-9582-3b8ea45bb8dc.html

The writer is Miriam Kramer, and I don’t know who the editor was, but here’s a picture of the scientist holding a model of phosphine:

Okay, the rule:

• When you compare two things, use the comparative; -er
• When you compare three or more things, use the superlative; -est
• When you’re not comparing but just describing, don’t put anything on the adjective.

First, see the second panel:

It’s not /vick chu als/! I remember my high school English teacher saying it was pronounced /vittles/. Well, I just ran into the word, so I looked it up. Yup, it’s /vittles/!

I may as well add that the king didn’t need to say “old crone.” Crones are already old, so “crone” is sufficient.

Now I’m in the mood for ribs.

If you feel funny using the singular they (even though you may do so), see if you can rewrite the sentence! Take a look at the caption for this:

Change the sentence to

Pluggers don’t need to change into work clothes. They already have them on.

Simple, eh?