On Sat, 13 Jul 2013, Paul wrote:
Well, to be technical, it should be "viruses" in English, although
"virii" or "viri" is (or used to be) common in computer and early
internet circles. "Virae", "virusen", "viru... viri... vi... nasty
things" and other forms are used, either in jest or self-recognition
of one's lack of complete linguistic knowledge. While the word has no
plural in Classical Latin, Neo-Latin defines "vira", "viris" and
"virorum".
'vira' and 'viris' are just forms of 'virus' the way "he", "his" and
"him" are forms of masculine singular pronoun.
of course one doesn't find 'vira' in actual Latin texts but one
doesn't find the plural of 'slime' in actual English texts either.
computer people misunderstand how Latin works so some know the plural
for many words ending in '-us' is '-i' or '-ii' so they assume this is
true of 'virus' -- though they don't think the plural of 'status' is
'stati'!
but I agree 100% - in _standard_ English the plural is 'viruses'
(there is no 'virusses' or 'virae') but now in computer circles it can
be 'virii' or whatever they want.
It can also be regarded as having no plural, although that
doesn't seem to be common in English. Programmers are, however, known
to have a somewhat humorous take on English, so sticking to "viruses"
is probably a little boring... :)
yep. sounds 'different' and edgy.
F.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plural_form_of_words_ending_in_-us
http://www.ofb.net/~jlm/virus.html
Paul
On Sat, 13 Jul 2013 11:13:09 +0200
Luuk <luu...@gmail.com> wrote:
On 12-07-2013 11:56, Luuk wrote:
virusses (or virae)
it should be:
virus
thanks,
--
Felmon Davis
Words must be weighed, not counted.
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