4 ms·
> virii Pet peeve of mine, but it looks like you slept through English class as well. The plural of "virus" in English is "viruses". "virus" in latin is a mass
by henrikschroder 11y ago
> virii
Pet peeve of mine, but it looks like you slept through English class as well. The plural of "virus" in English is "viruses". "virus" in latin is a mass word and has no plural, like "sugar" and "air".
- pluma 11y agoActually isn't virus in Latin u-declension, i.e. the plural form would be virus (long u)?
- goldbrick 11y agoTo add to that, even if virus was to be pluralized in Latin, it would be "viri" not "virii".
- hodwik 11y agoVira, actually. However, virii is the hacker subculture form. This being hackernews... I'm comfortable with my decision.
- hodwik 11y agoYour perscriptivism here seems misguided then, because if virus is a mass word we shouldn't be saying viruses either: just "virus". And anyway, if we absolutely had to express a plurality of virus, it would be "vira". Anyway, this is hackernews. For those of us who grew up in internet hacking communities of the early 90's "virii" was the plural form in the lingua franca. As a descriptivist of great habit, I will continue to use that form.
- henrikschroder 11y agoI am actually a descriptivist myself, but the prescriptive approach usually works best when trying to convince people how to write. Apparently not so in this case. How about this argument then: "virii" is f*ckin ugly? No? Darn. :-)
- henrikschroder 11y agoSidenote, because I think this is fascinating: Just because a noun is a mass word in one language, it doesn't mean it has to be in other languages that have borrowed the word. For example, in my language, "lego" is a mass word, and to make a plural you would have to say something like "pieces of lego", but in English, the plural of "lego" is "legos".