# I hate Greek/Latin plurals, or to hell with "fora"! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 29, 2002, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-greek-latin-plurals-or-to-hell-with-fora/106279 "2002-04-29T13:27:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Cerowyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/82dd89/32.png) [@Cerowyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cerowyn)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2002, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-greek-latin-plurals-or-to-hell-with-fora/106279/21 "2002-04-29T21:39:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by matt\_mcl \* > \*\*Astorian, my dictionary has “hippopotamus” passing through Latin on its way from Greek to English. \*\* As does [dictionary.com](http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=hippopotamus), although they wimp out and give both hippopotamuses and hippopotami as plurals. ---
**Author:** ![RaCha\_ar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c2a13f/32.png) [@RaCha\_ar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaCha_ar)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2002, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-greek-latin-plurals-or-to-hell-with-fora/106279/22 "2002-04-29T21:53:31Z")
Technically, the Greek plural of hippopotamus is hippopotam **oi**. Don’t let anyone try to tell you I didn’t learn anything from my Greek major. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2002, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-greek-latin-plurals-or-to-hell-with-fora/106279/23 "2002-04-29T23:56:31Z")
I just want to point out that [datums](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=datums) is, indeed, correct in certain contexts. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2002, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-greek-latin-plurals-or-to-hell-with-fora/106279/24 "2002-04-30T09:31:43Z")
I just remembered another one - “Rhinoceros” It’s not even a “us” word, but how many times I’ve heard it as “rhinoceri”… even in print. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2002, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-greek-latin-plurals-or-to-hell-with-fora/106279/25 "2002-04-30T09:43:14Z")
> [@](#): > > Fora. I loathe this word. I realize that “fora” seems to be the word of choice ‘round these parts, but what the hell is wrong with good ol’ Angol-Saxonized “forums”? Yes indeedy! I always call them “forums”, and I WORK here. I knows better but I does it anyways. ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2002, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-greek-latin-plurals-or-to-hell-with-fora/106279/26 "2002-04-30T10:12:33Z")
Oooo… poor didda 😃 Actually, I like Greek and Latin plurals usually, but I don’t like “fora”. If we agree that language is evolving, and “right” or “wrong” ways of using it are based on consensus, then we can accept that many words of Greek and Latin origin have lost their original plural form to the English ‘s’ and ‘es’, whilst others have retained them. This is an arbitrary process. The problem with words like “forum” is that the process is half-complete. I doubt anybody will use “fora” fifty or a hundred years from now, and “forums” probably would not have been used a century ago. The word’s half-evolved status means that whichever plural form you decide to use, there’ll be somebody who won’t like it. For mine, I’ll stick with “forums”. It sounds better. “Fora” does sound a bit pretentious to me. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_Wright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Steve\_Wright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_Wright)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2002, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-greek-latin-plurals-or-to-hell-with-fora/106279/27 "2002-04-30T10:17:36Z")
Errr… although I once posted the Latin plural of “forum”, and therefore bear some responsibility for the prevalence of this trend… I’m inclined, personally, to use the English word “forum”, whose plural is “forums”. It’s important (well, if you’re a grammar freak with A-level Latin, it’s important) to remember that “fora” is only the _nominative_ plural of “forum”. If you feel obliged to use the Latin plural form, you should feel obliged to use it correctly… and Latin has case inflections. So, you can say “These fora are full of fascinating material”, no problem. And the accusative form is the same, so you can add “I like these fora”. But the dative and ablative form is “-is”, so you’d have to say “I contribute regularly to these foris” and “My life is being taken over by these foris”. As for the genitive “I enjoy being a member of these fororum”, the less said about that the better. Where this leaves us with data, media, mediums, and hippopotamuses, I really couldn’t say. ---
**Author:** ![RaCha\_ar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c2a13f/32.png) [@RaCha\_ar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaCha_ar)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2002, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-greek-latin-plurals-or-to-hell-with-fora/106279/28 "2002-04-30T16:36:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pulykamell \* > \*\*I just remembered another one - “Rhinoceros” It’s not even a “us” word, but how many times I’ve heard it as “rhinoceri”… even in print. \*\* rhinoceroi 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2002, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-greek-latin-plurals-or-to-hell-with-fora/106279/29 "2002-04-30T17:29:18Z")
Rhinocerotes (Prepoceros!) 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Billy\_Baroo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/76d3ee/32.png) [@Billy\_Baroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Billy_Baroo)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2002, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-greek-latin-plurals-or-to-hell-with-fora/106279/30 "2002-04-30T17:57:00Z")
> [@](#): > > I just want to point out that datums is, indeed, correct in certain contexts. Yes, that is correct. In Haiti. Some collective plurals:[ul][_]crash/herd/bloat of hippopotami[_]crash of rhinoceri[_]murder of crows[_]shrewdness of apesarmy of me[/ul] ---
**Author:** ![OxyMoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e9a140/32.png) [@OxyMoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OxyMoron)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2002, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-greek-latin-plurals-or-to-hell-with-fora/106279/31 "2002-04-30T18:41:07Z")
“Fora” wasn’t a word I’d heard used for real until law school. We do like our latin and we do take it fairly seriously, even if our pronunciation is completely bollixed…anyway, fora’s useful when you’re discussing jurisdictional issues. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-greek-latin-plurals-or-to-hell-with-fora/106279.md?page=1)