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Pooh-Bah
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Virii ?? why two "i"s ? (apart from hackneyed jokes about being able to see better)
Surely the plural of "virus" should be "viri": it could only be virii if the singular were virius (c.f. radius/radii)
It is the sort of question that bugs you, is it not?
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#5616
08/24/2000 10:08 AM
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#5617
08/24/2000 11:22 AM
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Pooh-Bah
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This is what is vulgarly referred to as "a cop out."
"Beauty is truth," you say; "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," is an aphorism also well accredited. Put them together and you can deduce that truth is in the eye of the beholder.
Which gives "viruses" an equal claim, I aver.
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#5618
08/24/2000 12:06 PM
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The plural is viri in Latin but viruses in English. I have seen it as viri in medical journals, but not anywhere else that I recall.
I suspect the reason for this apparent discrepancy is that viruses trips off the tongue better than do radiuses and hippopotamuses. The accented syllable (vir) is too close to the -i to be sonorous (at least in English).
Along those lines, most dictionaries show octopuses or octopi as the plural of octopus. In my view the latter is incorrect since octopus is not from Latin, but from Greek okto (eight) plus pous (foot).
TEd
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>Along those lines, most dictionaries show octopuses or octopi as the plural of octopus. In my view the latter is incorrect since octopus is not from Latin, but from Greek okto (eight) plus pous (foot).
well, maybe we should compromise with octopodes then...
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#5621
08/24/2000 10:33 PM
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well, maybe we should compromise with octopodes then... Thanks yet again, tsuwm, for setting us all straight. My beloved Chambers even agrees with you!!  It gives "octpuses" as archaic, "octopi" as wrong, and "octopodes" as correct. And I have seen this form used often, can't remember specifically where or when. Rgds, lusy
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#5622
08/24/2000 10:48 PM
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>, maybe we should compromise with octopodes then<
Can I infer from this that now I have moved to Australia I am living in an Antipus?
Shame, I always rather liked cats.....
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#5624
08/25/2000 10:15 AM
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old hand
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>the plural is viri in latin...
yes, but that is the plural of vir (=man), whereas virus is of neuter gender, and therefore has the plural vira, see
http://lysy2.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/WORDS.EXE?vira
I must admit I never saw this plural in contemporary use. To me, it sounds vastly more elegant than viruses, not to speak of virii, which we should rather not put into circulation.
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old hand
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well, maybe we should compromise with octopodes then...
I'd have to say that I prefer octopi.
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enthusiast
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what's archaic about octopuses?
i've never heard octopodes in my life. was it meant to be a joke?
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Goodness me! william, you're right--take a day off and who knows what you'll find when you return. Such agonizings, over what was plainly stated as a made-up-in-total-subjectivity word, though it did lead, as these things so often seem to do here, to other interesting items. Max, have you ever considered moving to Hawaii? Just think of how often you'd get to see and use that lovely ii. 
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>i've never heard octopodes in my life. was it meant to be a joke?
not at all. YCLIU
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Max, my NZ connection told me that the two languages originated in the same area. (What he based this on, I don't know.) Interestingly, he said he gets Maori words by studying the vowel structure. I don't speak or read Hawaiian, but I know it is a language brimming with vowels.
He taught me how to pronounce Aotearoa. One of the Hawaiian islands is Oahu: three syllables!
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humuhumunukunukuapuaa - a *small* Hawaiian fish
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>not at all. YCLIU
of course i never doubted the authenticity of your sources, tsuwm.
i just think "octopodes" becoming the plural of octopus is about as likely as imelda marcos leaving a shoe shop empty handed.
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>i just think "octopodes" becoming the plural of octopus is about as likely as...
an... interesting... choice of words, to which I will merely reply by quoting the OED:
octopus Pl. octopodes (ok TOP oh des), anglicized octopuses.
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#5636
08/27/2000 10:58 AM
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>>...What fascinates me is how the consonants disappear in a northerly direction.
This being the Southern corollary to what us Northern Hemisphere philologist types, in referring to developments causing the differences among the members of the Finno-Ugric family, call The Great Vowel Movement.
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>the great vowel movement  US Plans to Deploy Over 75,000 Vowels: Cities of Sjlbvdnzv, Grzny to Be First Recipients. Before an emergency joint session of Congress yesterday, President Clinton announced US plans to deploy over 75,000 vowels to the war-torn region of Bosnia. The deployment, the largest of its kind in American history, will provide the region with the critically needed letters A,E,I,O and U, and is hoped to render countless Bosnian names more pronounceable. "For six years, we have stood by while names like Ygrjvslhv and Tzlynhr and Glrm have been horribly butchered by millions around the world," Clinton said. "Today, the United States must finally stand up and say 'Enough.' It is time the people of Bosnia finally had some vowels in their incomprehensible words. The US is proud to lead the crusade in this noble endeavour." The deployment, dubbed Operation Vowel Movement by the State Department, is set for early next week, with the Adriatic port cities of Sjlbvdnzv and Grzny slated to be the first recipients. Two C-130 transport planes, each carrying over 500 24-count boxes of "E's," will fly from Andrews Air Force Base across the Atlantic and airdrop the letters over the cities. Citizens of Grzny and Sjlbvdnzv eagerly await the arrival of the vowels.
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>a tentative first step toward the re-anglicisation of American orthography?
an 'a' must have inadvertently found its way into that case of 'e's (or I cribbed it from an anglican [or a ponce]).
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In reply to:
>a tentative first step toward the re-anglicisation of American orthography?
an 'a' must have inadvertently found its way into that case of 'e's (or I cribbed it from an anglican
What are the orthographical differences between Anglicans and other religious groups?
Bingley
Bingley
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> yes, but that is the plural of vir (=man), whereas virus is of neuter gender, and therefore has the plural vira, see
http://lysy2.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/WORDS.EXE?vira
I must respectfully disagree. Regardless of what this on-line dictionary says, virus is by Latin definition a masculine noun, unless Rosa Parva (Rose Little, my esteemed latin teacher) was WAY wrong. Words in the nominative case that end in -um are neuter, those that end in -a are feminine in construction. But they are not necessarily neuter or feminine in reality. Agricola is the word for farmer, and it is most definitely feminine in construction. Nauta, sailor, is another one I remember. I am sure there are other words like vir and virus that could have similar spellings in some of their cases and I am sure the Romans had no trouble determining from context the difference between several men and several poisons (notwithstanding what some modern-day ultra-femininists might believe).
Now this brings up one of my favorite topics of conversation about language and one of my pet peeves as well. I took two years of Latin in high school, mainly because my parents thought French would be better for me (GRIN). I contend that these two years of Latin were the most important overall in my education, giving me good basics in sentence construction as well as in the art of vocabulary.
My pet peeve is that it is impossible to find Latin being taught at the high school level.
Anyone have any thoughts on this?
TEd
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>What are the orthographical differences between Anglicans and other religious groups?
<sigh> I refer you to the second sense below....
anglican
1 : of or relating to the established episcopal Church of England and churches of similar faith and order in communion with it
2 : of or relating to England or the English nation
[Merriam-Webster]
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max,
this exegesis (what a friend) is not going to be worth the disk space it eats up, but you did ask it as a favor, so what the heck. first, as a disclaimer, I never ever spell color with an 'e' or an 'a' (or with a supererogatory 'u' for that matter). now, here is my theory. it was either a typo or a brain-disconnect (it's a fine point). that's my theory.
-anne elk
p.s. - so which of us is supposed to feel spectacularly stapled at this point??
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My pet peeve is that it is impossible to find Latin being taught at the high school level. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
This, I believe, is more true with public schools. Cincinnati, with more than it's fair share of catholic schools, has a few that offer Latin. A good friend of mine took Latin. Unfortunately, the public school that I attend, though it is a very good one, does not offer Latin. I probably would have taken it were I given the choice, but due to the lack I went with German.
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#5647
08/28/2000 10:09 PM
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#5648
08/28/2000 10:36 PM
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>a subjective definion...
I am fit to be tied -- "definion" is *way too anglicized for this poor yank!
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#5649
08/28/2000 10:49 PM
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>caused by poor hand-eye coordination
yes, it's truly amazing how often this particular mis-spell manifests itself! I often type it as defintion.
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>>>the great vowel movement >> US Plans to Deploy Over 75,000 Vowels:
Cities of Sjlbvdnzv, Grzny to Be First recipients. OK, tsuwm, *squaring off* where'd you find that? It's hilarious (taking no faint pride, however, in my pun being original, pre-dating this shameless plagiarism by 20 years  )!
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>virus is by Latin definition a masculine noun<
Hi Ted,
Since the teaching of Latin is not so widespread anymore, it might not be superfluous to recall that in spite of its relative regularity, even Latin has its fair share of exceptions to formal rules. Those are probably mostly taught in the third and following years (-: ... But I have scanned the Web in the meantime, and "virus" seems to be a somewhat contentious case, not concerning its gender, which is recognized throughout as neuter, but with respect to its declension. There are no instances of its plural in the old literature.
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#5653
08/29/2000 11:48 AM
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>But I have scanned the Web in the meantime, and "virus" seems to be a somewhat contentious case, not concerning its gender, which is recognized throughout as neuter, but with respect to its declension. There are no instances of its plural in the old literature.
ws:
My point is that virus (unless it is a very irregular noun) would take a masculine declension, even though it is considered to be neuter in gender. Nauta (sailor) and agricola (farmer) are feminine in declension but are considered masculine in gender. Their plurals are nautae and agricolae, not nauti and agricoli. I'm not familiar enough with Latin any more to be certain, but I do not remember any words with a singular -us ending in the nominate singular which became -a in the nominative plural.
Being neuter in gender, virus would take a neuter adjective. Virus malum (bad poison, which is a bit of a redundancy of course) would be viri mala in the plural. Bottom line: I believe that the plural of virus is going to be viri not vira (at least in classical Latin).
Now where IS that Bill Buckley fellow when we need him?
Ted
TEd
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