Re: virii

[Richard Cobbe <cobbe@airmail.net>]

"Brooks R. Robinson" <brooks.robinson@rides.com> writes:

> Would a better case be a comparison of Hippopotamus?

Probably not, no.  `Hippopotamus' is a Latin borrowing of a Greek word,
rendered roughly into ASCII as hippopotamos, plural hippopotamoi (note the
-oi ending, as distinct from Latin's -i).  Since Classical Greek didn't
have the sound represented by a V in Latin, `virus' is most probably not of
Greek origin.

Unfortunately, none of the surviving classical texts seem to use `virus' in
the plural.  We do have enough hints, though, to suggest that it doesn't
play by the normal us/i, us/ora, us/era, or us/us rules for Latin nouns.
With this lack of any real evidence, I typically use the plural form
`viruses'.

(For those classicists keeping score at home who aren't already throughly
sick of the matter, most people think that `virus' is actually a
second-declension *neuter* noun, which would make the plural `vira'.
Again, though, the plural form is unattested.)

Richard


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