Hi, well, since the whole world's gone mad and nothing is on topic anymore, I might as well join in.
2 or 3 weeks ago there was a thread with the subject 'Virii'. Despite drafting an outraged email I managed to hold myself back, and didn't send it. "Next thing though", I thought, "somebody will start writing 'virius'". Lo and behold... The word is 'virus' in English. It has a regular English plural, which is 'viruses'. In Latin the word 'virus', meaning 'slime' or 'offensive smell', is the nominative form of a 2nd declension noun, which goes: virus, vire, virum, viri, viro, viro. That's the singular. The plural forms are: viri, viri, viros, virorum, viris, viris. Neither 'virius' nor 'virii' are part of the word in any way, shape, manner, form, gender, declension, case, variant, accent, dialect, spelling system etc. etc. Nor, as far as I can determine, do/did either of these words exist in their own right. Most Latin nouns ending in -us are declined as noted above. If there isn't already and 'i' as part of the word stem you don't add one. Ever. A few Latin words ending in -us are not 2nd declension but 5th declension. 'Status' is an example, and one that people get wrong a lot. Here's how to decline 'status': Singular: status, status, statum, status, statui, statu Plural: status, status, status, statuum, statibus, statibus Note that 'stati' and 'statii', which people often think are the plural, are not. Note also that 'status', like 'virus', is a perfectly regular English word, with a regular plural form: 'statuses'. Now let that be a lesson to you, and don't let me catch any of you ever using the wrong form again or you'll end up in detention. --- Bobbus Grammaticus Maximus - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
