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latin plurals
- Subject: latin plurals
- From: Bill Troop bill@xxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2002 08:46:10 -0400
At 6/24/2002 02:25 AM, you wrote:
>That's "viruses", Rene. One internal ess. You can look it up.
Whatever. It sounds terrible to me, regardles how many s.
I can find no alternative to viruses in Fowler 1, 3 or OED 2. Fowler 1 & 3
both explain that 'callus, octopus, polypus & virus, nouns various abnormal
in Latin, can all have plural -uses', -i being reserved for Latin second
declension words.
However, Rene, you might be consoled by the 'rare' word viritic, which has
one quotation from 1895, and which means virulent, poisonous -- perhaps we
could try to revive it--; I also see that a possible plural for beef, when
applied to oxen or cattle, is beeves (have you any beeves with me?--you
could start a fad for that in Japan); and finally there is (or are) 'oaves'
the 'sporadic' 19th century plural of oaf.