2 ms·
I completely agree with your point but in this case it's not a simplification, it's yet an other exception. I can understand exceptions or odd pronunciations di
by simias 9y ago
I completely agree with your point but in this case it's not a simplification, it's yet an other exception. I can understand exceptions or odd pronunciations disappearing but that's the other way around.
Normally words in english which have "ce" in them are not pronounced "ke". Similarly words whose singular ends with "~us" do not usually become "~i" in the plural. You don't say "one bus, two bi", "one fetus, two feti". Cherry-picking a few words that for some reason should follow latin grammar is more motivated by sounding "smart" than linguistic necessity IMO.
- klodolph 9y agoI can't help but feel that the "bus-bi" example is disingenuous. Surely you don't think I'm that stupid? Memorizing which words take Latin plurals and which ones don't is work that not everyone has done. So we guess that "virus" is a second-declension Latin noun, which is correct, but now we have to also remember that it's a mass noun and therefore doesn't take a plural in Latin, but since it's not a mass noun in English it has to take a plural anyway, and therefore we get "viruses". And when people get this wrong you can judge them poorly and accuse them of trying to sound smart.