From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Wed, 1 Aug 2001 05:11:40 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Wed, 1 Aug 2001 05:11:30 -0400 Received: from inet-mail4.oracle.com ([148.87.2.204]:56560 "EHLO inet-mail4.oraclecorp.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Wed, 1 Aug 2001 05:11:26 -0400 Message-ID: <3B67C82C.3FBCCDC7@oracle.com> Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2001 11:13:16 +0200 From: Alessandro Suardi Organization: Oracle Support Services X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.4.8-pre3 i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Nadav Har'El" CC: Riley Williams , Guest section DW , Linux Kernel Subject: Re: [OT] Virii (sic) In-Reply-To: <20010801015116.B11060@win.tue.nl> <20010801115637.C22440@leeor.math.technion.ac.il> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Nadav Har'El wrote: > > On Wed, Aug 01, 2001, Riley Williams wrote about "Re: [OT] Virii (sic)": > > > [The singular is virus. The plural in English is viruses. In > > > Latin there is no plural - it is even debatable whether virus is > > > a noun in Latin - in any case it is indeclinable.] > > What I don't understand is why people use the form virii, with a double I! > > Just like the plural of abacus is abaci, the plural of cactus is cacti > (check the dictionary if you don't believe me), shouldn't the plural of > virus be viri, with one I at the end (of course, "viruses" is also currently > accepted as a plural, and even preferred by some people). > > I think people get confused by the fact that the plural of radius is radii. > That extra "I" comes from the i in radius - it shouldn't appear in the plural > of "virus"! The plural of the different word "virius" should have been virii. As Andries says, there is no known use of plural of 3 nouns from the 2nd Latin declension: vulgus, pelagus and of course virus. This is btw referenced here: http://language.perl.com/misc/virus.html . Hopefully the thread can be dropped... --alessandro "Nothing can light / the dark of the night / like a falling star" (Julee Cruise, "Until the end of the world" soundtrack)