My science teacher my freshman year of high school wouldn’t let us pronounce it that way, and it stuck. So when I look at this, first I hear his voice saying, “Date-ah is a name, dat-ah is information.” Then, largely thanks to this community, it’s followed by Brent Spiner’s voice saying, “One is my name. The other is not.”
My freshman year of HS was in 93, so TNG was still on the air.
It apparently was dat-uh in the U.S. for a very long time, basically until TNG. In fact, the first time Patrick Stewart pronounced it the way we know it now, Brent Spiner asked the producers if it was pronounced the other way and he and Stewart debated it and the response from on high was, “from now on, whoever says the name first: that’s how it’s pronounced.”
My science teacher my freshman year of high school wouldn’t let us pronounce it that way, and it stuck. So when I look at this, first I hear his voice saying, “Date-ah is a name, dat-ah is information.” Then, largely thanks to this community, it’s followed by Brent Spiner’s voice saying, “One is my name. The other is not.”
My freshman year of HS was in 93, so TNG was still on the air.
It apparently was dat-uh in the U.S. for a very long time, basically until TNG. In fact, the first time Patrick Stewart pronounced it the way we know it now, Brent Spiner asked the producers if it was pronounced the other way and he and Stewart debated it and the response from on high was, “from now on, whoever says the name first: that’s how it’s pronounced.”
Edit: Here’s him telling the story- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeqTMTOxid8 (I got it slightly wrong, it came from Gene himself.)