Sure. Let’s unleash more pain on the octopodes-speakers. Send them to the paradigms, let them start with the “Alpha” declension, and work their way through the Attic one. That will teach them that they are NOT classical scholars. And remind them that originally Greek had a dual case, so there would be a separate word for just two octopuses.
The viruses only “purpose” is to replicate itself. The cells that make up the wart are the tissue that the virus is replicating in. That’s it. In times past, people didn’t “get rid” of warts, other than by picking them off (which spreads the virus around). Eventually, most warts go away as the bodies immune system takes care of them (like most infections).
You may have been cured of that particular HPV infection, but its easy to get re-infected. And many warts reappear after removal anyway.
According to my ninth-grade Latin teacher, if the Latin word “virus” had a Latin plural, it would have been “vira”, since despite the -us ending, it’s neuter. Since I find “viruses” cumbersome (with the two 's’s), that’s what I use.
“Octopi” I’m willing to cut some slack, since it results from a correct application of the rules (it’s just the wrong rule to apply). “Virii” and “penii”, though, would be the plurals of “virius” and “penius”, respectively. Really, there’s no shame in not knowing the rules of Latin plurals, but if you don’t, then just use the English plurals; don’t mangle the rules that you don’t understand. It just makes you look pretentious and uneducated, a terrible combination.
The virus is not the wart. The virus causes warts. It is the symptom of infection. You can be reinfected with HPV after the original wart is gone just as you can be reinfected with rhinovirus after already having a cold.
Also, when people remove warts, they sometimes don’t manage to get every last infected cell. If they leave some behind, the virus can begin reproducing again and eventually forms another wart in the same spot. You’ve really got to dig out a chunk of flesh to make sure.
also, as the wikipedia article with the gross picture points out, removing the wart through acids or surgery or whatever, may still leave some papilloma virus living in the nearby healthy-looking skin (the virus is in the healthy-looking skin, but has not caused a wart/tumor yet). So the infected cells that were not removed may later develop into more warts.
There’s a radio commercial for a petroleum company that brags up the special additives they put in their gasoline, claiming that these “microscopic molecules” help clean your engine. I shudder each time as I am aware of the distinction you describe above.
You get reinfected with a different type of HPV, or a different type of rhinovirus. If you got infected with (say) strain 16 of HPV, and your body cleared it off, you won’t get that again. But you may get strain (say) 10 because the antibodies your body made against strain 16 do not work against strain 10.
It’s the whole idea behind vaccination, after all. If your body already has antibodies against an organism, and those antibodies are protective, you won’t get the same disease/get a weaker, easier to get rid of infection.
Same with the rhinoviruses. You may have gotten (say) 1-100 strains and have antibodies for those, but hey, strain 201 has an antigen that is not recognized by your antibodies. You’re screwed, you’re going to get the infection until your body responds to it. Then you won’t get strain 201 again (or at least that severe).
I thought some macromolecules were large enough to be seen under a microscope. But I know very little about biology, and when I want to pluralize the word ‘octopus’ I say: octopHOLYSHITTHEREISMORETHANONEOCTOPUSANDTHEY’RECOMINGRIGHTATMEGAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
If you’re going to make up your own rules, and don’t like “viruses,” then it would be better to treat “virus” as both singular and plural, like “sheep” and “deer.” One virus, many virus.
