As a self-confessed pedant regarding grammar, spelling, and all things literary, I am naturally drawn to the data-is data-are debate. Don’t get me wrong, I can split the odd infinitive and lapse into colloquialisms as well as the next person, and I do know when time could be better spent than by fussing over a solitary noun.
However, everyone else seems to have the time on their hands, so why not jump in? Data is such a hot topic at the moment, as we are beholden to them (see what I did there?). Without data, you cannot know your properties, without data you cannot realise your ESG strategy, without data, there would be no AI…which actually might not be such a bad thing. The list goes on and on, but so does the debate on data’s number agreement.
So here is my vote: data = a group of datum, it is therefore a “collection” of sorts. Would anyone out there say, “my collection are fantastic”?