# Plural of campus... why isn't it campi? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 18, 2002, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plural-of-campus-why-isnt-it-campi/143600 "2002-12-18T17:37:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![patrick\_p.cosgrove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7c8e57/32.png) [@patrick\_p.cosgrove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/patrick_p.cosgrove)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plural-of-campus-why-isnt-it-campi/143600/21 "2013-07-10T02:58:10Z")
@mrcrow (above0 The ditty in question distinguishes only the feminine nouns of the Fourth declension in Latin and runs thusly: “An anus left her domus with an acus in her manus and sat sewing 'neath the quercus on the Idus of July!” “An old lady left her house with a needle in her hand and sat sewing under the oak tree on the Ides of July!” PPC:) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plural-of-campus-why-isnt-it-campi/143600/22 "2013-07-10T05:46:14Z")
The obvious answer is because we’re speaking English and the rules of Latin don’t apply to English. The question isn’t why do we pluralize campus as campuses; that’s just normal English. The question is why do we pluralize radius as radii? And the other question is when will the board adopt some means of distinguishing old threads? ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plural-of-campus-why-isnt-it-campi/143600/23 "2013-07-10T05:55:20Z")
> [@Llama\_Llogophile](#): > > I always wondered the same thing about guys named “Rufus”. or a guy who is just a poor ol’ doofus 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plural-of-campus-why-isnt-it-campi/143600/24 "2013-07-10T06:43:21Z")
> [@MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](#): > > The plural of octopus is **not** octopi!!! Octupus has a Greek root and therfor is not subject to Latin pluralization, the correct plural is **Octopuses**. Though some people do mistakenly use the plural ‘octopi’, it is incorect. [Shawn Spencer]I’ve heard it both ways.[/SP] [Burton Guster]No you haven’t, Shawn.[/BG] ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plural-of-campus-why-isnt-it-campi/143600/25 "2013-07-10T08:31:04Z")
> [@Achernar](#): > > Interestingly enough, _bus_ just happens to come from a Latin word _omnibus_, which is not nominative, not a noun, and not even singular. Trying to weasel the “correct” plural out of it would be difficult indeed. That doesn’t stop people from trying: > [@Alfred Denis Godley](#): > > **The Motor Bus** > > ``` > What is this that roareth thus? > Can it be a Motor Bus? > Yes, the smell and hideous hum > Indicat Motorem Bum! > Implet in the Corn and High > Terror me Motoris Bi: > Bo Motori clamitabo > Ne Motore caedar a Bo--- > Dative be or Ablative > So thou only let us live:--- > Whither shall thy victims flee? > Spare us, spare us, Motor Be! > Thus I sang; and still anigh > Came in hordes Motores Bi, > Et complebat omne forum > Copia Motorum Borum. > How shall wretches live like us > Cincti Bis Motoribus? > Domine, defende nos > Contra hos Motores Bos! > > ``` ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plural-of-campus-why-isnt-it-campi/143600/26 "2013-07-10T09:01:52Z")
Very good. And I don’t even know Latin. > [@Colibri](#): > > No, _scampi_ is from Italian, not Latin, and the singular is _scampo_. Likewise, some fancier restaurants serve a single large _raviolo_ as a starter. Not raviolus, which would be a much better word. Incidentally should a single zombi(e) be a zombus? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2013, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plural-of-campus-why-isnt-it-campi/143600/27 "2013-07-10T22:35:44Z")
And is a single oat, eaten as a snack, a granolum? ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plural-of-campus-why-isnt-it-campi/143600/28 "2013-07-11T09:05:59Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And is a single oat, eaten as a snack, a granolum? Take a cannolus. Leave the guns. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plural-of-campus-why-isnt-it-campi/143600/29 "2013-07-11T10:25:33Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > Very good. And I don’t even know Latin. Nor do I, having deciding early on it’s not worth a fæx except to confuse people about whether we are correcting their English or their Latin. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2013, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plural-of-campus-why-isnt-it-campi/143600/30 "2013-07-11T10:58:04Z")
> [@MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](#): > > The plural of octopus is **not** octopi!!! Octupus has a Greek root and therfor is not subject to Latin pluralization, the correct plural is **Octopuses**. Though some people do mistakenly use the plural ‘octopi’, it is incorect. > [@Jabba](#): > > An alternative plural of _octopus_ is _octopodes_, which is the Greek plural form. Yes. But what annoys me even more are people who have figured out that the plural of _syllabus_ is _syllabi_ and then go on to say things like “You can pick up a _syllabi_ from that table next to the door.” No! That’s singular. It’s like they want to show off their knowledge by using it as much as possible. Along those lines, a frind of mine recently wrote “Whomever told you that …” Wy? Just because he knows about “whom” but isn’t sure when to use it? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plural-of-campus-why-isnt-it-campi/143600/31 "2013-07-12T00:11:36Z")
The one that annoys me most often is “alumni”. No, I am not an alumni of Villanova University. I’m an alumnus, and a woman who went to school with me is an alumna (a group of which would be alumnae). If all that is too much to keep track of, just call any of us individually an alumn, or a group of us alumns, which neatly dispenses with the gender dichotomy, and pluralizes in the same way as other English words, which you learned in kindergarten. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plural-of-campus-why-isnt-it-campi/143600/32 "2013-07-12T03:57:29Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The one that annoys me most often is “alumni”. No, I am not an alumni of Villanova University. I’m an alumnus, and a woman who went to school with me is an alumna (a group of which would be alumnae). If all that is too much to keep track of, just call any of us individually an alumn, or a group of us alumns, which neatly dispenses with the gender dichotomy, and pluralizes in the same way as other English words, which you learned in kindergarten. Not to mention how annoying it is when you have to sort out “graduated Villanova,” “graduated from Villanova,” and “was graduated from Villanova” for those gushing over your accomplishment. The fabulous thing about the inconsistencies of English is how readily it provides us opportunity to be superior to the less-educated. Most days I am a pig in slop, wallowing in a cesspool of linguistic impropriety disgorged in limitless quantities by the ever more careless polloi. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plural-of-campus-why-isnt-it-campi/143600/33 "2013-07-12T08:55:36Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > The obvious answer is because we’re speaking English and the rules of Latin don’t apply to English. The question isn’t why do we pluralize campus as campuses; that’s just normal English. The question is why do we pluralize radius as radii? > > And the other question is when will the board adopt some means of distinguishing old threads? When monkeys fly out of my ass! IOW NEVER!!! :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plural-of-campus-why-isnt-it-campi/143600/34 "2013-07-12T10:06:56Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > And the other question is when will the board adopt some means of distinguishing old threads? Come on - this thread is in Latin. That not enough of a clue for ya? ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plural-of-campus-why-isnt-it-campi/143600/35 "2013-07-12T13:11:29Z")
First place, according to one style book I read, “It is never incorrect to make a plural of a borrowed word with -s or -es.” So “datums”, “phenomenons”, “calculuses” (one I’ve used when explaining that what we call calculus is really two calculuses and there are others), “mediums”, “alumnuses” (better that “alumni/alumnae” since ungendered), while unusual, are not wrong. And “campuses” and “buses” although the latter is a shortening of what originally began as a dative plural. Notice that we do this only for Latin (and, rarely, Greek) words. We would not say “Schadenfreuden” (assuming that’s the correct German plural) would we? One other point. If you insist on using the Latin plural, why do you use only the nominative plural? When used as an object, especially an indirect object, why don’t you use the dative plural? It makes no sense. ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plural-of-campus-why-isnt-it-campi/143600/36 "2013-07-12T13:37:29Z")
Meanwhile, hoodli are raising tantra in the cafeterium. English isn’t consistent in its treatment of borrowed words. Those that were adopted later or used more in academia (especially scientific latin terms) tend to be pluralized more using their root language’s rules, than those that were adopted earlier or are used in more everyday settings. I like the style guide suggestion that English pluralization forms are always acceptable. I’d prefer it if we’d Anglicize more borrowed terms and make life simpler. I prefer to use data as a word like “sand”, where it’s taken as singular in spite of being a collection of individual grains. I find it more natural, since we almost never talk about a datum, and when we do we generally say “data point”. On this point, the data is unambiguous. 😉 [There’s a term for this kind of collective noun that I first saw here recently, but I can’t quite remember it.] ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plural-of-campus-why-isnt-it-campi/143600/37 "2013-07-12T17:07:31Z")
> [@lieu](#): > > What if you had several cans of Puss 'n Boots? Podes 'n Boots. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plural-of-campus-why-isnt-it-campi/143600/38 "2013-07-13T06:41:46Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Notice that we do this only for Latin (and, rarely, Greek) words. We would not say “Schadenfreuden” (assuming that’s the correct German plural) would we? We also do it for some Hebrew words, The only one that comes to mind immediately is goy/goyim, but there’s a number of others. > [@](#): > > One other point. If you insist on using the Latin plural, why do you use only the nominative plural? When used as an object, especially an indirect object, why don’t you use the dative plural? It makes no sense. No, it makes sense. Except for pronouns, English doesn’t mark (inflect) words when used as objects, either direct, indirect, or prepositional. Marking borrowed nouns that way would actually violate English grammar. When I say grammar here, I mean the wiring in your head that lets you spout grammatical English on the fly. You’d have to rewire that to use such Latin inflections correctly without forethought. The same thing for second person pronouns. Most people don’t realize it, but the word _you_ originally was the plural accusative (direct object) form of the pronoun. The other forms were _thee, ye_ (nominative), and _thou_ (accusative singular), which everyone recognizes as archaic forms. But when people try to be archaic and use them, chances are they’ll use the wrong form. However, they’ll generally use the possessive forms _thy_ and _thine_ correctly, since there are analogous forms (_your_ and _yours_) stll in English ---
**Author:** ![Noel\_Prosequi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b19c9b/32.png) [@Noel\_Prosequi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noel_Prosequi)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plural-of-campus-why-isnt-it-campi/143600/39 "2013-07-13T09:57:07Z")
One of my favourite jokes touches this subject, and is derived from supposed correspondence between two Oxford dons in the 1920s. The first sends a note to the second: “would you like to pop around to discuss some interesting conundra arising from the maxima and minima of continua?” The second replies: “It’s too nice a day to sit around on our ba doing sa.” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plural-of-campus-why-isnt-it-campi/143600/40 "2013-07-13T12:33:59Z")
The Hebrew examples I was going to use were “Seraphim” and “Cherubim”, which I think are in broader use than “goyim”. Though of course English doesn’t have nearly as many Hebrew loanwords as Greek or Latin. Actually, come to think of it, I can’t think of any examples of loanwords that pluralize as they do in Greek, either. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plural-of-campus-why-isnt-it-campi/143600.md?page=1)