Re: [OT] Virii (sic)

Alessandro Suardi
2001-08-01T09:11:40Z

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)