From: Charles Hixson (charleshixsn@earthlink.net)
Date: Thu May 22 2003 - 10:42:41 MDT
Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
> ...
>
>That's true of most neuter Latin nouns, but "virus" is in a declension where
>most neuter nouns don't have plurals, and there is /no/ attested Latin plural
>for "virus"--it appears only in the singular, like "gunk" in English.
>
>So, while "viri" is a more educated, erudite mistake than "virii", it's
>still a mistake. "Viruses" is the /only/ plural.
>
>And don't get me started on "octopus", which isn't Latin at all. :-)
>
But then what did the latin word mean? I'm fairly certain that it
wasn't what we mean by virus. Perhaps "a virus" means a species of
virus as well as an individual virus, and it's the species that has the
plural virii (viri looks like it means men, or perhaps soldiers, but my
latin is long behind me).
That said, I admit myself to using plurals like stewardi (or possibly
stewardae), and socksen (that is actually English+Norse, not Latin,
though). And with that background, I could hardly be considered a
serious reference.
-- -- Charles Hixson Gnu software that is free, The best is yet to be.
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