From: CeiSerith@...
Message: 14620
Date: 2002-08-27
Hmm, don't we give precedence to functional simplicity over personal taste? Besides, my point was not just with this one word, but any Latin word whose inflection is kept track of in English (via the plural.) Remember, English doesn't have inflections, not Latin inflections at least, so isn't it stupid to plural Latin words (that too inconsistently) as it was pluraled in Latin?
Isn't this an anomaly:
radius -> radii, while virus -> viruses
how about ignoramus?
Looks like people my point didn't seem to interest people here (except good old Piotr of course.) Wonder if am quibbling; is it that irrelevant to this list..?
If language were completely logical (or at least if it were logically so), I suspect that a lot of people on this list would be out of work.
That said, I would suspect "radii" being the pluarl of "radius" is because "radius" was a common term among scientists (and mostly among scientists) when they were still conversant in Lain, whereas "virus" entered the common lexicon at a much later date. There may also be a touch of the English teachers syndrome, wherein silly little rules are made up such as Latin words requiring Latin plurals. That has been falling off of late, so perhaps "virus" made it into common parlance too late to be affected.
Two more interesting words are "media," which is singular in the US, but I believe plural in England, and "data," which some insist is plural and some consider singular. My personal opinion for "data" is that it depends on the exact usage. My personal opinion on people who get upset when one of these is used "incorrectly" is that life is too short.
David Fickett-Wilbar