Page 113 - Perfect English Grammar: The Indispensable Guide to Excellent Writing and Speaking

with the -s for possession, and then over-thinking it. Leaving off the apostrophe
is always a better choice, as in these examples of plain plurals with no

■■■■possession: the Daliwals the Rambuteaus the Simmonses the Smith-
Kungs

8.6.8 PLURAL OF DATA

The word data can be both a plural and a singular. In many academic,

computing, and scientific contexts, it’s usually a plural: The data make it clear
that this process is irreversible.

Professionals in those domains often use the singular datum.
Non-specialists, though, tend to use data as a mass noun or non-count noun

(see section 8.4, Count Nouns and Non-Count Nouns), similar to the way you
■might use rain or sleep: The data is ready to be put into the spreadsheet.

8.7 Proper Nouns

Most proper nouns are names of people, places, organizations, and commercial
brands.

Other proper nouns include titles of books, songs, musical recordings,
movies, and video games; names of specific animals; names of planets, stars,

and other astronomical features; seagoing ships; and spacecraft. Holidays and
some important dates are proper nouns, too. See section 8.8.1.2 for an

explanation of why some of these are italicized.

■ Personal names: Zhang, José, Ananya, Jane, Lincoln, Smith,

■ Beyoncé, García, Li, Nguyen Places: Tokyo, Mexico, New York City,
Greenville, Seoul, Redwood City, Kings County, Nob Hill, Montmartre,

■ Mississippi River, Indian Ocean, Southern California Media: Minecraft

(video game), The White Album (musical recording), The Brief
Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (novel), Absolutely Fabulous (television

■