TMI: how to pronounce “data”
This one has been bugging me for years — decades perhaps. Lo and behold, my mom asked me the other day how data is supposed to be pronounced, and I thought that it’s time I do an entry on it. So here goes.
My gut instinct was that data (sounds like DAY-tah) is the more common usage and, since the AP Stylebook tends to change such things as spellings and pronunciations based on frequency of use, it would probably choose to say DAY-tah.
My other gut instinct was that data (sounds like DA-tah, which slightly rhymes with batter, hatter, tatter) is the more technical usage, one that only scientists and English professors preferred.
Mad scientists don't need data to prove their madness (photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/moria/232256824/)
So to research this little gem, I went to Merriam-Webster for clarification. The site has a pronunciation function that allows your computer to talk to you so that you can hear exactly what the word should sound like. And what do you think I found? Two little icons to click on. That means that the first icon (the one on the left) is the prominent, preferred American pronunciation. The one on the right is also acceptable, but it is more like the understudy to the left pronunciation, as well as being the British preference.
So. Data. What’s your guess? I hope that your guess was my guess, because then you’d be correct. Merriam-Webster lists DAY-tah as the primary pronunciation.
Problem solved.
Then there’s the issue of whether data deserves a singular or plural verb attached to it. But you know what? It’s Friday at beer:thirty and that’s a topic for another day — happy weekend to all you data hounds.
Happy trails!
SAK
Tags: AP Stylebook, data, Merriam-Webster, pronounce
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On all the old TV and Movie shows, it is pronounced DAY-tah. How about the android in the popular (and still airing) Star Trek: the Next Generation. His NAME is DAY-tah.
So how did we get to DAAH-tah?
I think it is the influence of the Spanish language in English. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, only an explanation. Our rule is that the penultimate vowel is long if it is separated by one consonant and then a final vowel. Sounds confusing but the examples aren’t: Date, mate, rate, rage, late, gate etc. In Spanish, that first vowel is a short vowel, ‘ah.” But English has been quirky from the outset by the influences of other languages so, as in the above example, gate has a long ‘a’ but frigate, a kind of ship, has a short ‘i’ and ‘gut’ as the properly pronounced ending. And so it goes. The language is changing and it annoys the heck out of me but there’s nothing anyone can do. The one thing I learned in anthropology is: Everything is changing all the time: people (yes, I mean our DNA), language, culture, even the continents are drifting, mountains are rising, the oceans are rising. Nature continues to make new land, as evidenced by Hawaii. Two thousand years from now Hawaii will be a much larger state! Change happens.
Actually, I am American and I pronounce data like “DA-tah.” Most (if not all) of my friends and teachers, however, pronounce it like “DAY-tah.” I think this is because my family is from New England, and there it is primarily pronounce “DA-tah,” like the British. Other parts of the United States, however, I have come to find, mostly say “DAY-tah.” I prefer the way I pronounce it, to be honest, but it doesn’t really matter. Either way is fine.