harper wrote:
> this list refers to fora as “forums” (nasty little cross-lingual
> plural, that)
I just looked it up in a dictionary
http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=forum&r=67 and it says the
plural can be either forums or fora. But if you feel better about using
fora, you can access the fora at http://www.unicyclist.com/fora/
The same dictionary will tell you that radiuses is an acceptable plural of radius. Does that tweak your engineering nose or what, Kevin?
I also like octopuses, hippopotamuses, and indexes (rather than indices). Viruses, instead of viri, really irks me because I see it so often. Why is data (plural of datum) still widely used but stadia (plural of stadium) never used?
I think English was never meant to be taken seriously. It’s kind of like a cartoon language…transient and flexible like the elastic, animated characters of old.
I likewise think that I am not to be taken too seriously. Please don’t. But thanks for adding the link to “fora”. That’s a hoot. I’ll have to remember to use it everyday.
In article <9utu4n$4b4$1@laurel.tc.umn.edu>, harper
<forum.member@unicyclist.com> wrote: ) Viruses, instead of viri, really
irks me because I see it so )often.
You probably see it often because it’s correct, and viri isn’t.
) Why is data (plural of datum) still widely used but stadia )(plural of
stadium) never used?
data is usually used in a sigular sense these days, and datum is
rarely used. If datum were commonly used, I’m sure we’d be pluralizing
it as datums.
)I think English was never meant to be taken seriously. It’s kind of like
)a cartoon language…transient and flexible like the elastic, animated
)characters of old.
Language is what people speak to each other, and it has always been
transient and flexible. -Tom
On Sat, 08 Dec 2001 12:29:21 -0600, Kevin Gilbertson
<mail@gilby.com> wrote:
>harper wrote:
>
> > this list refers to fora as “forums” (nasty little cross-lingual
> > plural, that)
>
>
>I just looked it up in a dictionary
>http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=forum&r=67 and it says the
>plural can be either forums or fora. But if you feel better about using
>fora, you can access the fora at http://www.unicyclist.com/fora/
Funny, that. But apart from the url everything on the page is still
“forums”. If you’re serious about it (which I think you’re not), download
iReplace. Google finds it. It does search and replace on multiple html
files. (I have no other connection to iReplace than that I downloaded it
the other day.)
“To trigger/fool/saturate/overload Echelon, the following has been picked
automagically from a database:” “Schengen, NAICC, mullah Mohammed Omar”
>)I think English was never meant to be taken seriously. It’s kind of like
>)a cartoon language…transient and flexible like the elastic, animated
>)characters of old.
I have to say that I see two identical postings from Klaas up there. I’ve seen it in other threads(not all). I post exclusively via (non-english word!!!) Unicyclist.com(thanks Gilby!) I most often see Klaas’ postings doubled, but I’ve seen others here, and sometimes even quadrupled. The double postings seem to happen only from people who post via the newsgroup.
Caleb Penner
viruses
“Viruses, instead of viri, really irks me because I see it so often.”
Viruses is the correct plural of virus. Not all Latin nouns ending in -us change to -i in the plural; only second declension nouns. I believe virus is fourth declension, so in Latin it would remain unchanged in the plural. In English, though, it is viruses. Viri is the plural of vir, viri, the second declension noun meaning man.
Oops…I’ll change the subject (or my screen name) to hide my embarassment (for Klaas Bil the plural being embarassmenten).
I get double postings from Michael Grant and Klaas Bill occassionally. I usually get 5x postings from John Foss. Iget multiple postings from others sporadically.
Sorry, Rebbeca: out of pure long-hair solidarity, I have to side with Harper.
Ya, word to your mother!
Time to go sing the “You say toe-may-toe, I say toe-mah-toe” while practicing my run-on-sentace mount. Basami Juggling, anyone?
Christopher
Ya, me to, in the same ratios (ratia?).
I view the forum via Gilby’s service (thanx, Mr. G).
Christopher
You preach it, Christopher. If conquering forces and NPR journalists can change the face of language then so can unicyclists. I believe that the prefix, uni, is Latin in origin and that the root, cycle, is Greek. We’ve already begun. Now, let’s wait for the plethora of plurals to pour in and we’ll be ready to attack.
Viva le cheveux long, comrade!
In the unicyclist.com forums you’re all going to see the same double postings… it’s a problem with the script I use to import posts from the newsgroup that is caused by emails that do not have the proper headers to thread it properly. So when my script has to figure out where to put the post, it sometimes multiplies them. I am not sure exactly what the cause of it is, but I’ll look into it to see if there is an easy fix. I’m planning on rewriting the import script soon though to better suit these forums (I didn’t write the original import script, but hacked it quite a bit). Sorry about the annoyance of the multiple postings.
Hey, man: you’r doing us a FAVOR- for nada. No need to apologise. You’ze 'da MAN!
Christopher
Vernacular
>“Language is what people speak to each other, and it has always been
transient and flexible. -Tom”
I cant agree with that statement! Vernacular is what people speak to each other, and it has always been
transient and flexible. Language is the way the vernacular is supposed to be spoken.
-David Kaplan
Re: Vernacular
Are you trying to entice me into missusing the word rassberry? Realy! Hrumph! I’d never! I… I… oh, what the hell…
Pppphhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhttttttttttttttteeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrpppppp!
Ah- I feel much better.
Christopher
> I cant agree with that statement! Vernacular is what people speak to
> each other, and it has always been transient and flexible. Language is
> the way the vernacular is supposed to be spoken. -David Kaplan
I think he’s right. Boy, am I glad I’m out of school!
JF
Rhysling,
First, you misspelled my name. Second, this is my third semester taking Latin, so I really do know what I’m talking about. Second declension endings, singular and plural, are in order (nominitive, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative):
-us
-i
-o
-um
-o
-i
-orum
-is
-os
-is
Fourth declension endings are:
-us
-us
-ui
-um
-u
-us
-us
-ibus
-us
-ibus
(I’m not certain about all the plural endings, but I’m positive about nominitive, which is the one in question.)
In my experience, Latin does not allow two different words to have identical forms (hence the irregular filiabus and deabus for ablative and dative plural of filia and dea, as opposed to filiis and deis, which would make them identical to forms of deus and filius) So virus is almost definitely either fourth declension or has an irregular form. (I don’t have my dictionary with me, but will look up tomorrow)
-R.
In article <9uvl70$f3v$1@laurel.tc.umn.edu>, rebecca
<forum.member@unicyclist.com> writes:
> “Viruses, instead of viri, really irks me because I see it so often.”
> Viruses is the correct plural of virus. Not all Latin nouns ending in
> -us change to -i in the plural; only second declension nouns. I believe
> virus is fourth declension, so in Latin it would remain unchanged in the
> plural. In English, though, it is viruses. Viri is the plural of vir,
> viri, the second declension noun meaning man.
>
Johnny Wayne: “Bartender! I’ll have a Martinus please.” Frank Shuster: “A
Martunus? You mean Martini.” Johnny Wayne: “If I wanted two, I’d have
asked for them.”
============================================================
Gardner Buchanan <gbuchana@rogers.com> Ottawa, ON FreeBSD: Where you want
to go. Today.
Greetings
In message “RE: unicycle.com”, John Foss wrote…
>> I cant agree with that statement! Vernacular is what people speak to
>> each other, and it has always been transient and flexible. Language is
>> the way the vernacular is supposed to be spoken. -David Kaplan
>
>I think he’s right. Boy, am I glad I’m out of school!
As a linguist/lexicographer, let me add my two cents. “supposed” needs to
be expanded it on. As it stands, it sounds like you are promoting “the
prescriptive appraoch” as opposed to the “descriptive approach”. The
former was mostly abandoned by professinoal lexicogrtaphers in the early
20th century. The modern approach is that there is no “wrong” or “right”
per se, but only within a register – it’s a long story and out of
place here.
Regards, Jack Halpern President, The CJK Dictionary Institute, Inc.
http://www.cjk.org Phone: +81-48-473-3508
Viri
Ok, I was wrong. Virus, viri is second declension, and it avoids being identical to a form of vir by having a macron (horizontal line) over the first i. Still, I think the correct English plural of virus is viruses. Dictionary.com agrees.
Bartender! I’ll have a rum please. You’re lucky sir. It’s happy hour.
You’ll have ra for the price of rum.
Klaas Bil (in a fit of silliness)
On Tue, 11 Dec 2001 03:06:59 GMT, gardner@gromit.dhs.org (Gardner
Buchanan) wrote:
>In article <9uvl70$f3v$1@laurel.tc.umn.edu>, rebecca
><forum.member@unicyclist.com> writes:
>
>> “Viruses, instead of viri, really irks me because I see it so often.”
>> Viruses is the correct plural of virus. Not all Latin nouns ending in
>> -us change to -i in the plural; only second declension nouns. I believe
>> virus is fourth declension, so in Latin it would remain unchanged in
>> the plural. In English, though, it is viruses. Viri is the plural of
>> vir, viri, the second declension noun meaning man.
>>
>
>Johnny Wayne: “Bartender! I’ll have a Martinus please.” Frank Shuster: "A
>Martunus? You mean Martini." Johnny Wayne: "If I wanted two, I’d have
>asked for them."
>
>============================================================
>Gardner Buchanan <gbuchana@rogers.com> Ottawa, ON FreeBSD: Where you want
>to go. Today.
–
“To trigger/fool/saturate/overload Echelon, the following has been picked
automagically from a database:” “SARA, ECOMMERCE, EODC”