Re: OT: macs?
Anthony DeRobertis <anthony@derobert.net> writes:
> Jens Peter Secher wrote:
>
>> Shouldn't that be
> >
>> "Windows is like a prostitute. Sure it's got a nice make up,
>> but you have all kinds of vira after spending some time with it."
>
> No, it shouldn't be, or the Latin scholars will take revenge on you.
>
> [sending to -curiosa where this belongs]
Actually, you're wrong, Anthony.
The Latin plural of virus is, actually, vira. Sorry for the news.
"Virus" is an extremely rare category of noun, it's a second
declension neuter in -us. See
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aentry%3D%2351113.
The English plural of "virus" is, of course, "viruses."
You might see people make up "virii", but that isn't a Latin word of
any kind.
"Viri" is either the plural or the genitive singular of "vir", meaning
"man", or it could be the genitive singular of "virus". (Though
"virus" is such a rare word, you should never assume that's what
you're looking at!)
The fun here is that there are at least four (four!) Latin words with
very similar stems. In rough order of frequency, these are:
"vir", stem "viro-", meaning "man" (2nd declension)
"vis", stem "vir-", meaning "power" (3rd declension, and irregular)
"vira", stem "vira-", meaning "woman" (1st declension)
"virus", stem "viro-", meaning "poisonous miasma" (2nd declension)
Thomas
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