Re: [Ridiculously OT] Virii (sic)

David Huen
2001-08-01T08:13:33Z

On Wed, 1 Aug 2001, Riley Williams wrote:

> plural of virus is virii. Since the whole idea of a computer virus
> comes from the medical world, I'd have to assume the terminology came
> with it.
>
> I'll stick with what my training taught me.

As an ex-virologist, English usage has its plural as viruses almost
everywhere, even in books written in "U.S." English. Even in medical
virology texts in the aforesaid language.

Not that Caesar ever spoke at length concerning viruses, but viral
taxonomies usually refer to viruses of a kind with a collective noun
ending with thus:-

papillomaviridae - wart viruses
herpesviridae - herpesviruses
retroviridae - retroviruses

Here's an example of both the plural "viruses" and the collective
ending being used...
http://www.utoronto.ca/virology/bio351/papova/Papova.html

Indeed, if you should search Google for the terms "viruses" and "virii",
the former will find mostly biological/medical pages while the latter
while the latter finds almost exclusively descriptions of computer
"virii" which may be indicative of the orgin of the latter.

I look forward to computer virus taxonomies discussing Sircamidae and no
doubt Code Red could be classified as member of phylum Annelidae with
Linnean name Tabes whitehouseii.

>
> PS: Plural of bacteria is bacterium, from the same source.
>
You did mean it the other way round, didn't you?

D. Huen, Dept. of Genetics, U. of Cambridge