AAAAAAAAAAAAAA
In standard written English I think "they were hurt" is the clear winner.
Closest point of comparison I can think of is "you were hurt", which uses the same verb form regardless of whether "you" is singular or plural.
Counterpoint: These data
Sounds wrong, but is correct (and sounds correct if you were taught it that way). Maybe this is the same kind of situation?
Data is plural, so what's the issue? It's more an issue of data and datum becoming muddied together. Grammar is dumb, don't obey the rules if the rules are dumb. But do keep being intelligible to those with whom you communicate
Oh grammar is definitely dumb, but also, seemed like kind of a fun question
If this is fun for you, check out "Tense, Present" by David Foster Wallace. Ultra, turbo nerd shit specifically about grammar
It's "these" for data because conceptually (to scientists I guess) data are a formless blob of information, whereas to the regular person data is just a bunch of facts.
Oh I thought it was a split between whether it was countable or uncountable mass noun.
It's "they were hurt." "You" used to be second person plural pronoun with "thou" as the second person singular pronoun. When "you" replaced "thou" as the second person singular pronoun as well, the conjugation of verbs didn't change. So, most English dialects wouldn't say "You is tall." or "You eats too much food" but "You are tall" or "You eat too much food." It's the original definition of "you" being the second person plural that verbs get conjugated as if "you" still has that plural meaning. I don't see why this principle wouldn't extend to "they" as well.
