On Wed, 02 Apr 2003 09:02:48 +1000, Ron Clarke wrote:
> BTW: Anybody thought of declining VIRUS ?
> - virus
> vire
> virum
> virii
> viro There is an extensive discussion regarding
the Latin declinsion of VIRUS at the website I
mentioned previously.
http://www.perl.com/language/misc/virus.html
It's not as straightforward as you might imagine. From what I
was able to discern VIRUS in Latin is a special class the gets
handled differently. But it's all Greek to me. <grin>
Evidently, in Latin VIRUS has no plural.
And the reason Latin is now of limited utiity is that hardly anyone
speaks it anymore. I'm willing to bet that even when a Roman Catholic
Bishop from Africa meets his counterpart from South America that they
are more likely to converse in English than in Latin.
Thirty years ago when I was in high school Latin was still offered
in some larger schools as an elective. Today high school Latin in
the United States is extremely rare.
Tempis fugit.
Sam Ewalt
Croswell, Michigan, USA
-- Arachne V1.70;rev.3, NON-COMMERCIAL copy, http://arachne.cz/
