Historically, "data" was indeed a plural -- but in common usage is now a
singular collective noun. Insisting on "the data are ..." will sound odd if
not wrong to most people, other than perhaps scientists of the pre-WW2
generation.

"News" was also once a plural: see how far you get asking "Are there any
news?"

But don't get me started on "the media is ..."





"garfield-n-odie" wrote in message
...
In your example, the verb "look" should be singular because the subject
of the sentence is "distribution", which is singular.

Scott Tidyman wrote:

The grammar checker makes suggestions as though "data" is a singular
word.
Though it is often incorrectly used in the singular, it's actually
plural.
Type the follwing sentence in Word for an example.

The distribution of the data look like this: