88
I do, but that's because "now these points of data make a beautiful line, and we're out of beta, we're releasing on time."
If anyone would know how to pronounce it, it's a computer
Yes. I'm British.
Exactly what I was gonna say.
I've taught statistics for over 20 years. I flipflop on this constantly, sometimes in the middle of a sentence. Even more disturbing: I don't have a consistent position, at least grammatically, on whether it's singular or plural.
It's sort of like the dual pronunciation of the word 'a' in English. While that has more distinct rules, it's still mostly which one feels nicer.
Another one for me is "route".
edit: On further thought, it only works both ways as a synonym for a highway, if I'm talking about a path more generally the root pronunciation sounds wrong.
I alternate between the two pronunciations depending on whatever I vibe with at the time, much like with how I spell colour/color
I only say data the way it's said in Star Trek. Same for database.
If you mean like "Dei-tuh" , then yah . Just sounds more natural to me
I pronounce it like that, but I call the character "dah-ta"
One is his name, the other is not
I know it's wrong, but it's ok right? 👉 👈
If Data had feelings, he'd be very upset right now.
Is that meant to be /æ/ as in “dad” or /ɑː/ as in “spa”? I find people do not agree on which sound the spelling indicates.
Oh I assure you, I would have used IPA if my goal was to accurately convey my pronunciation.
American. Day-duh.
Data: First, the two A's/vowels:
The first of two A's gets the "Aey" sound, the second gets the "Ah" sound.
Then, because I'm from California, the ah becomes uh.
Then, similarly, the "tuh" has a hard T at the beginning. But again because California/USA, the T becomes a D (British: butter ("buttah", hard t's), usa: budder(soft t's or d's))
Thus: day-duh.
I use them interchangeably 🙈
It is pronounced /ˈdætə/.
Dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive.
Yes, I'm from the UK and that's just how it's said here.
Yes, i watched TNG before (and during) i learned English
How else are you supposed to pronounce it?
There are three variants I’m aware of: /eɪ/ as in “day”, /æ/ as in “dad”, and /ɑː/ as in “spa”. I personally say it with /æ/.
Brits pronounce it day-ta, Americans, Canadians and Australians pronounce it dah-ta. Data pronounces it Day-ta.
American here, I can't speak for Canada, but I don't think I've ever heard any Americans in the US in real conversations say it differently than it is in Star Trek.
I've lived in nearly every major region of the US, so if there's a place where they still pronounce it like "dah-ta" it must be a very small regional thing. Normal working class people having actual conversions everywhere I've ever been say "day-ta".
I've read before that Patrick Stewart is the reason for that changing, but I don't know if that's true. Seems like an outsized influence for one guy to have on culture, but maybe!
Interesting. From some googling it looks like America is a mix of both but leaning towards day-ta, whereas the other countries are more consistently as I said.
I have a British friend who now lives in Canada and works in tech and has changed the way he says it (from day-ta to dah-ta, or really more like dah-da) for convenience. I had thought that it was an Atlantic divide but seems like there's more to it.
I'm a software developer in Canada. I've only ever heard "day ta"
American with an accent that is functionally General American here: it's day-duh, the t gets flapped. Dah-ta sounds very off to my ears, if anywhere in the US pronounces it that way, it's probably one of the weirder accents from the northeast.
Dat a
I pronounce it ta da~! , jazz hands included
Doita?
As more data becomes available
Then we can start doing more with it
And as we do more with it
That that creates more data
My approach: A single data point is "dah-ta" Some quantity of data is "day-ta"
For example: "I back up my game's save dah-ta in case my hard drive's day-ta gets corrupted"
The singular of data is datum though?
Yes you're right, but then you get into the argument
- The data is corrupt
- The data are corrupt
I'm camp one because I treat data as a collective noun of data-items, not as a plural of datum.
Fair enough - I’d also go with ‘the data is corrupt’ so looks like I must eat my own words!
I pronounce it data. Guess I thought everyone did.
Me too. Out of interest do you pronounce it 'gif' as well?
Same
I know it's me just being a particular asshole, but I really don't like the pronunciation data... it's honestly tiresome, problematic, and outdated. It's pronounced DATA.
I vacillate between the two. Really depends on the words surrounding “data”.
A local radio DJ said once that if he's feeling fancy he says "Da Ta" like "ta-da!" Cracked me up way more that it should have.
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this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2025
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