Re: There's no such word as `virii'

From: Alper Çugun (alper@dds.nl)
Date: Wed May 14 2003 - 01:08:22 MDT

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    Quoting Damien Broderick <damienb@unimelb.edu.au>:
    > To make a plural from a word ending with the suffix -us, take it off
    > and add the suffix -i to the stem.

    You're right that the plural should be viruses but this bit about Latin
    plurals is incorrect.

    From: http://www.perl.com/language/misc/virus.html
    "Writers who, searching for a fancy plural to virus, incorrectly write
    *viri are doubtless blindly applying an overreaching -us => -i rule.
    This mis-inflects many words. For example, status and hiatus only change
    the length of the final vowel; genus goes to genera; corpus goes to
    corpora. Others are even worse if this rule is mis-applied, like
    syllabus, caucus, octopus, mandamus, and rebus."

    Happy Latin to you,

    -- 
    Alper Çugun
    +31 - (0)6 - 24 55 33 06
    


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