Data

Permanently expatriated Canadian: datta, stratus like datta, status like stratus. But saying it to myself, staytus sounds okay too.

Mumblety-peg was before my time, but not by much.

Dayta.

I spent more than 25 years in the dayta processing business, in Texas and Michigan, and can't remember ever hearing anyone say "datta".

61, still in Michigan.

It could be only people of a certain age look at a thread called "Speaking in Togues."

You might have gotten some interesting answers in WoS, if it hadn't been killed.

What # 6 said, including the "born & raised in Ohio" part. Early thirties.

I'm older than VinnyD, but don't remember mumblety-peg. I do remember having a jackknife, though; all of us kids had them. Nowadays if you say "high-tops" you are talking about what we called "gym shoes." To us, "high-tops" were the leather lace-up boots that we wore in the winter over long wool socks. Above them, we wore knickers. That ensemble can be seen on the boy at the center in this photo.

The high-tops had a knife pocket on one side, with a leather flap that snapped closed.

About pronunciation: I remember that the text for one of my geology courses was "Stratigraphy and Sedimentation." The instructor may have influenced my pronunciation of STRAY-tuh, but I still say Him-a-LAY-uhz for the Asian mountains; he called them the Him-AHL-uh-yuhz.

Edited by NorthAmerican.

#9--

What and stattus? staytus or stahtus? And what about strata?

Mumblety-peg and one-a-cat were both before my time. Although I remember an attempt to revive mumblety-peg when I was 14 or so. It was self-consciously retro though, and it didn't succeed. Mumblety-peg requires lots and lots of practice.

Staytus. Stra'ta.

Ta.

There are a lot of companies around here with "data" in their name. Gyrodata, Datalog and so on.
I'm hearing "dayta" when I write them but some people call them Gyrodahta etc. I don't think it's consistent by nationality or schooling.

Datta or dayta, I seem to use both interchangeably, have no idea why, but datta does "sound" a bit more normal to me. Stratta and stattus are the only way I've ever pronounced those two. Same age as NorthAmerican, but grew up and lived in the southwest (New Mexico) most of my life, so my pronunciation is often quite different than his Chicago pronunciation. Spanish influence on mine, Russian, (or Yiddish or Polish) on his.

I KNOW that data is plural, but I have a sneaking hunch that I say datta as a singular and dayta as a plural. Once you start thinking about these sorts of things in isolation (rather than "not-thinking" about them in normal conversation), it gets terribly confusing.

Edited by: mazgringo