OT: virus (was: ssh tunneling)
On Tuesday 26 August 2003 03:40, Colin Watson wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 26, 2003 at 02:01:05AM +0200, Arnt Karlsen wrote:
>> ..no rule witout exeption: these 2 minutes _are_ useful in tarpits,
>> to help slow vira propagation:
>
> That's a new plural of "virus" to me ...
>
> ["viri" and "virii" are both wrong. The first is made up by assuming
> that "virus" is a Latin masculine second declension noun, which it's
> not (it's neuter), and "viri" is actually the plural of "vir" and
> means "men". The second is just utterly weird, though strangely
> popular, and is constructed on top of a made-up second declension
> noun, "virius". "vira" is probably better than anything else,
> because at least it's neuter, but really seems more like the plural
> of "virum". Anyway, there are no recorded instances of a Latin
> plural of "virus", because its meaning back then was abstract and
> not something you could really pluralize. The only English plural of
> the word is simply "viruses".
>
> This concludes today's pedantry.]
Sorry for being late, just some more pedantry:
virus, -i n. (no plural)
Coming from old-indian višám via old-greek viros (sorry, don't know
how to enter the correct letters and accents) into latin.
The greek word means simply "venom / poison", whereas the latin word
can be translated as "slime", "poison", or as a metaphor for "slaver
/ foam / venom" (compare Vergilius: destillat ab inguine virus), the
old-indian word on the other hand just had an abstract meaning.
I'd think the English plural is "viruses", in German at least it is
"Viren", and nothing else ;)
Thanks to Mr. Schüller and Ms. Altenburg for six years of boring Latin
lesson, and no, I still don't think Caesar was a great man.
Back to work,
sorry for pedantry,
Flo
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