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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Latinate plurals are not a ditch I'm prepared to die inI completely agree with this; and would go a step further. I disagree with your emphatic answer, Bean, because whilst that may be technically correct for Latin we are discussing English - and the word agenda has now been naturalised into the native tongue. Words only gain meaning by usage within a given speech community - so for me at least, agenda is a word that stands in for something like a collective noun rendering "a packet of information", and I therefore react to punctilious Latin usage as pretentious dogma! [/rant] 
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old hand
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old hand
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Ah well, I only wish I'd had the guts to tell that to my aforementioned professor. This guy was out for blood, and that was only one of the nitpicky things which he kept commenting on. Plus it is possible - I'll look through a few papers and see - that in scientific journals the data-plural thing is still consistently used, although in popular speech it is not as common. There are plenty of other grammatical constructions in our papers which seem like garbage to anyone else reading them, but are the most efficient or most clear way to express a thought!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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the most efficient or most clear way to express a thought!
I agree, Bean. It's just that we are then operating within a particular speech community that has its own terms and consensus on meaning, which may well be marginally or completely at odds with non-specialist understanding of the 'same' word. I think that's what generates most of the heat in popular language discussion: it's a collision of two speech communities.
My fickle fingers keep wanting to type 'speach' - I shall have to wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled...
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veteran
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veteran
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I'm not prepared to die for Latin either, and I wouldn't dream of using "agendum" -- I don't believe it's ever used in the US. HOWEVER: You'll have to take down your pants for a half dozen of the best; the plural of curriculum is curricula (neuter gender). This from the one who made a fool of himself over caelum.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
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"You'll have to take down your pants for a half dozen of the best"
Lending new dimension to the term, "linguiphile." [kiss kiss emoticon]
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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We aren't in Rome any more, Toto. 
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Joined: Aug 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2000
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We aren't in Rome any more, Toto.Given the Latin theme to this thread, can you state with certainty that all of us are not in Rome? Emanuela isn't that far away from after all, and, should she be there, falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus - or, as I saw it written once - falsus in uno, falsus in Toto.
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Yeah, but you can bet your pizza diabolo* emauela doesn't say "agendum," Max+.  --- *Ænigma: diachronic
+ Max-Toto = fac-totum 
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Joined: Nov 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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BYB thundered: have to take down your pants for a half dozen of the best; the plural of curriculum is curricula (neuter gender).
You're right about the Latin, wrong about the sadism.
Actually "curricula" lost me a job interview a few years ago. The potential employer told the recruitment agent that he was looking for systems expertise, not a Latin scholar. Hence my reluctance to worry about latinising plurals of Latin words which, as Maverick has pointed out, are actually English words these days. Made me think!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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addict
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addict
Joined: Jun 2000
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apart from very occasional flirtations with curriculae, as curriculums is just plain ugly to say.Am I missing something? I'd say 'curricula', if I ever had to cope with more than one of them. I've never heard 'curriculaae' until reading this thread. Then again, I'd use data and agenda as singulars, even though I know the usage to be technically incorrect, so don't count me as an expert. 
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