Data

How do you pronounce it? And where are you from? It would be good to know how old you are too, but if you want to be coy about that, OK.

There are three possibilities that I can think of: (1) Dayta (with the vowel of day), (2) datta (with the vowel of hat) and (3) dahta, with the vowel of father.

Question (B): Same question with strata.

Note: if you want to talk about whether data is singualr or plural, start your own thread. It's all pronunciation here.

I would follow the rule of "OP first" but I'm afraid it might prejudice the answers.

You're afraid that the anti-VinnyD contingent will insist on a pronunciation different from (or different than) yours?

My pronunciation of data and strata both have the vowel of day. I'm past normal retirement age.

Exactly, NA. It might be different to mine, though.

I'm going to add a question C: status.

A) DAY-ta, but I think in my youth I used to say data as in hat
B) strata as in hat ( I don't know ANYBODY who pronounces it differently)
C) status as in hat us (I'd think half the people I know prefer stay-tus)

Pacific Canadian
Age? Even the sequoia kneel to me

American scientist of mature years here, who grew up with scientist parents. Always DAY-ta.

But stratta, whether I'm talking about geology or a type of egg dish.

The DAY-ta show that the stattus of the stratta is a lattice that doesn't matta. (I see I automatically made data plural.)

Day-ta

stratta

stattus

born & raised in Ohio
started hearing datta when I moved to the Boston area

Vinny, it doesn't matter in a text message.

East Coast US, 65:

Day ta
stratta
stay tus

Why are all the answers coming from, um, people of a certain age? Is this not the kind of question that gets youngsters excited anymore?

Kids these days. In my youth, in between bouts of mumblety peg and one a cat, there's nothing we enjoyed more than gathering data to map isoglosses.

Australaberdonian, just turned 58.
Member of ant-eye anti-VinnyD contingent.

Both dayta and dahta but never datta. Status and stattus. Tomahto never tamaydo.

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

I've had a few people say or write "the data are .." recently.
It's correct but it's also wrong unless you're in a maths experiment with the odd datum floating around..

Yes, I grew up hearing Russian, Yiddish, and Polish, but if you want an example of a true Chicago accent listen to this woman, maybe the only real Chicagoan doing broadcast journalism in this city: Pam Zekman. I didn't notice if she says any of the test words.

DAYta, but that is probably because I have heard more Americans saying it (on tv..) than posh Brits.

Grew up in London.

Dayta (but I think I hear a mix of dayta and datta around me)
Strahta
Staytus or stahtus, depending on the weather. (I know it's supposed to be staytus, but nobody says that here, so . . .)

Edited to add that of course I'm not a native speaker, so my answers are useless except as a measure of how people speak around me and how well I've paid attention to that.

Australian here, and slightly older than Vinny:

Mostly dahta for me, but others say dayta.

Always strahta, never heard any other way.

Stattus or staytus, mostly the former.

Edited by: libbyh

What Libby said. Australian, almost-mid-thirties.

Brit in Hong Kong, 40-something. Always dayta for me. An Australian friend who works in data management insists on calling it dahta.

I am mid 30s and have mostly lived in the UK.

I pronounce data and status with the a of "day" and strata with the a of "father".

"Apparatus" is another word I pronounce with the a of day.

I am mid 40s, male, born in the UK and lived in the UK most of my life.

I say day-ta, stay-tus and appa-ray-tus. Like everyone else so far I say strah-ta.

The first edition of the OED only has dayta.

My Chambers (Edinburgh c. 1980) has dayta and dahta, but labels the latter "US and technical English."

The American Heritage Dictionary has dayta, datta, and dahta.

I don't think I've ever heard an American say dahta, and the responses here bear that out. i don't know whether dayta or datta is more common here. But Chambers got it wrong.

I was wondering if British English had changed from dayta to dahta in the last few decades, but it seems that any movement that way is only sporadic.

Thanks, all.

dahta and strahta for me. stay tus for status.

and, another word: router. in new zealand it's not pronounced rooter but rather rowter.I understand brits call it rooter.

and I'm 32 from new zealand.

actually I sometimes do say dayta but 90% of the time I say dahta

Edited by: sneaker_fish

Lawyers in the US used to use the old Latin pronunciation, adjuourning syenee die ee etc, but now they are all over the place. Justice Stephen Breyer confused a lawyer in the Supreme Court a few years ago by asking about an a-MY-kus brief, a pronunciation the lawyer had apparently never heard, although up until 1950 or so it would have been the only one around.

I was wondering if British English had changed from dayta to dahta in the last few decades,

I expect it's the influence of Australian soap opera

Does anyone other than Andrew Smith say appa-ray-tus?

It's not a word I am in the habit of using, but were I to say it, I think I would pronounce it the way Andrew Smith does: appa-ray-tus.

I say appa-rah-tus.

#37 Me too.

Does anyone other than Andrew Smith say appa-ray-tus?

I do, seems normal in England.

Appa-rattus. Rhymes with stattus.

Oxford gives appa-RAY-tus fpr BE and appa-rattus for AE. Sound files here.

They also give DAY-ta as preferred for both BE & AE. DAH-ta is the BE alternate; datta, the AE.

I expect it's the influence of Australian soap opera

Except Australians (at least in engineering, if not in the soap you watch) most often say "dahta" .

Right, I'm off to read Desiderayta.

That's what pinchaque said, Ray. British dahta, to the extent it exists, may have been due to Australian influence.

Oh, did he?
Oh well, nothing like getting your retaliation in first.

Most of England.... Day-ta.
North East of England.... Dayt-aah.

OK--what's the Australian soap opera connection?

The UK seems to screen a few of our soap operas, nutrax. I'm guessing it's a reference to the UK's use of the term being influenced by this?

How would a soap opera influence pronunciation of data, of all things?

I can't imagine a scene like
"Oh, JIm, we can't keep meeting like this!"
"Don't worry, Alice. Data show that women with my wife's illness only live an average of two years after first diagnosis."

I'm not entirely sure that comment was meant to be taken seriously.

Old age pensioner - NZ - Dahta, Strahta.

I say datta, stratta, apparattus...

British dahta, to the extent it exists, may have been due to Australian influence.

I think you should say English rather than British. Dahta would be unsurprising in Scotland.

forgot - appa rah tus

ohwell - other than the free cable car ticket, I would never consider you an old age pensioner!

West Coast Australia - dahta.

This is in greater part due to the Australian practice of articulating in the easiest way possible. ie: trying to achieve minimum mouth movement when speaking.

Ireland, in my 30s - 'dahta'. The vowel is definitely long but more or less the same quality as in 'datta' i.e. not a far back vowel (I think that's the right term?) as in the southern English pronunciation of 'father'.

Though some might think I really pronounce it "daasha" due to the soft Irish intervocalic 't'.

Same vowel in stra(h)ta, same vowel in apparatus.