If you mean like "Dei-tuh" , then yah . Just sounds more natural to me
this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2025
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Yes, I'm from the UK and that's just how it's said here.
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 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
I pronounce it ta da~! , jazz hands included
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.
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
Yes. I'm British.
Exactly what I was gonna say.
I use them interchangeably π
It is pronounced /ΛdΓ¦tΙ/.
Dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive.
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 - Iβd also go with βthe data is corruptβ so looks like I must eat my own words!
Yes, i watched TNG before (and during) i learned English
I only say data the way it's said in Star Trek. Same for database.
I pronounce it like that, but I call the character "dah-ta"
Is that meant to be /Γ¦/ as in βdadβ or /ΙΛ/ as in βspaβ? 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.
One is his name, the other is not
I know it's wrong, but it's ok right? π π
If Data had feelings, he'd be very upset right now.
How else are you supposed to pronounce it?
There are three variants Iβm aware of: /eΙͺ/ as in βdayβ, /Γ¦/ as in βdadβ, and /ΙΛ/ as in βspaβ. I personally say it with /Γ¦/.
Brits pronounce it day-ta, Americans, Canadians and Australians pronounce it dah-ta. Data pronounces it 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.
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"
Dat a
Doita?
I alternate between the two pronunciations depending on whatever I vibe with at the time, much like with how I spell colour/color
Depends on the language Iβm speaking, but I usually say da-ta, because data is a Portuguese word for date, and when I switch to English and keep the Portuguese pronunciation (and sometimes I even mix up both words but thatβs another story)
D@-a
Data, I think because of digimon
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