The announcer was describing some short piano pieces of Grieg’s, and said “they were written between 1860 and 1880, from several opi.” (He pronounced it “OH-pie”)

I would rather have heard him say “opuses” than to create his own word! What would you call that?

He should have said, “from several opera.”

Heard any good ones lately?

Weelll, if octopi is the plural of octopus then shouldn't opi be the plural of opus? But I'm glad you sh-erred your concerns.

...then shouldn't opi be the plural of opus?

Carrying the analogy to its extreme, "I" should be the plural of "us". But it isn't. If anything, it's the other way 'round, discounting for things like case...

Zed:

The Latin word opus (a work) is an irregular neuter noun. Neuter nouns take an -a as the nominative plural. Most neuter nouns end un -um in the nominative singular -- ovum, plural ova. But opus is irregular and the plural is opera.

Interesting, I thought opera was a singular noun itself, if a singularly noisy one.

Hey Zed - I'm not sure I like the tenor of your remark!



Welcome!

But a good one on which to bass his hypothesis


And a welcome from me, too, Zed

on which to bass his hypothesis

You in the right plaice here, Rhuby?

Too much blowing our own horn here, stringing ourselves along. Maybe it's the cymbalism. Do you suppose the thread should be band alto-gether?

This does bring up an interesting topic. If the word has truly become an English word it should have an English style plural. The term opera, legitimate scholarly plural of opus notwithstanding, has been taken to mean something beyond its literal meaning of a collection of opuses, so to use it as the plain plural of opus would be misleading, particularly as the context is one of classical music. Opi is just plain wrong and shows an ignorance of the facts of the matter. Unless it was Peter Schickele, in which case he knew what he was doing and was just being Peter Schickele.

Opus is not so much an irregular noun as it is one with a different kind of regularity. The "regular" nouns of which TEd spoke are second declension and follow a paradigm with a root followed by a case ending. The root does not change from case to case. Nouns of the second declension ending in -us are masculine and those ending in -um are neuter. Opus is third declension. In the third declension all cases and number are formed of the root plus a case ending except nominative singular. In the nominatve singular the root is normally truncated or modified in some way. In the case of opus, the root is oper-. Also, the ending of the nominative singular does not indicate that the word is masculine. The fact that the nominative (and accusative) plural ends in -a does indicate that it is neuter.

Do you suppose the thread should be band alto-gether?

- or castrated?

These things don't come cheap, unless you can find a bargain-counter tenor.

running, running, running, running!

I've always heard opuses for the plural of opus.

Just checked a few online dictionaries and both opera and opuses were shown as plural forms of opus. I agree with Faldage that to use opera as the plural in speaking or writing about music might result in confused understanding. Opuses is immediately understandable, so I'll stick with that plural form.

I agree with you entirely, Theresa. "Opus", in its sense as a collection of music based on some underlying theme, is not "work" in the sense of the Latin original, it is a collection and the word is, by extraction, now an English one. So using the English plural logic giving "opuses" is correct.

However, my logic falls on its basso profundo when you use "opus" in English in the same sense as its Latin meaning. At which point my logic would, of course, have the plural as "opera". Which would make no sense to those with a small or shaky (or non-existent) understanding of Latin third-declension nouns. Hell, I studied 'em, and my understanding is very shaky these days.

- Pfranz