[Ads-l] "among the data"?

[Wilson Gray]

Youth is truly wasted on the young. For those of us who are of a certain
age, "data" *is* a plural noun and not a singular mass noun; _data_ is the
plural of _datum_, meaning "given," in Latin.

On Sat, Feb 7, 2015 at 12:54 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      "among the data"?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Something in the following grates, but I'm not sure how to analyze or
> describe it:
>
> " '...' said Swedish [CEO of Anthem], whose personal information was
> among the data accessed in the attack. "
>
> An Associated Press item, AP writer Ricard Alonso-Zaldivar, on the
> NYTimes web site titled "Hackers Access Records for Millions of
> Anthem Customers."
>
> "Among" requires a genuine plural, and doesn't work with a mass noun?
>
> Joel
>
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-- 
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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