The language pedant speaks (plural of virus)-- and a plea for clarity

[DPRK]

I read an entire book that went on about the Aesir, but nary mention of ass.

[Northern_Piper]

@RivkahChaya

This is actually discussed in an old Straight Dope column, if you don’t want to believe my high school Latin memory.

The plural of “virus” is not “viri,” nor is it “virii.” “Viri” is a Latin word, but it means “men.” It’s the plural of the word “vir” (the root of “virile,” if anyone cares). “Virii” does not exist. If it did, it would be the plural of “virius,” but virius is not a word.

“Virus,” in classical Latin, meant “slime.” In particular, it meant “poisonous slime,” or in general “stuff you DO NOT want to touch.” It also meant “animal venom.” As such, it was a mass noun, like butter, not a counting noun, like brick, and did not take a plural. A word like “butters,” to mean “varieties of butter” is a recent linguistic invention in English, and would not make sense to a Roman.

“Virus,” to mean “infectious RNA particles that cause illnesses” is an English word. It is a loan word from Latin, but the meaning in English is different, and it takes an English plural, so “viruses,” means “different kinds of such.” To mean individual virus particles, I would say “particles of virus,” but I am not a virologist. There may be a term, or they may say “the viruses,” or something. I’d have to ask my cousin.

My degree is in English, though, and I am sure of the fact that words as divorced from their origin as “virus” are pluralized as English words. Compare, for example, the English plural “operas,” to mean “several musical compositions for staging with singers in costume who act out parts.” This is what an “opera” is in English, and it’s a singular word. In Latin, it’s a plural. Of opus. The plural of opus is not “opi.” Now, in English, the plural of opus, is, of course, opuses.

You will not hear from me if you pluralize ANY loan word as an English word. You can say cherubs, and not cherubim; you can say dogmas, and not dogmata; you can (and really SHOULD) say bagels, even though in Yiddish, bagel is like deer and fish-- the singular and plural are the same. Also, please say babushkas, and not babushky, as they are in Russian-- this is another word that means something entirely different in English as it does in the original language, BTW.

Reaching for a foreign plural and getting the wrong one sounds awful, clunky, and also ignorant. But getting the right one often just sounds pretentious, and sometimes can even be misunderstood-- what if your audience doesn’t realize “apices” is the plural of “apex”? You really can’t go wrong with the plain -s when you are speaking English.

I would like to thank RivkahChaya for starting this thread.

It is reassuring to me that even in a world-wide pandemic, the SDMB is maintaining its standards of fighting ignorance and defending grammar.

[RioRico]

@Northern_Piper

It is reassuring to me that even in a world-wide pandemic, the SDMB is maintaining its standards of fighting ignorance and defending grammar.

I started to include a MY FAIR LADY quip here but thought better of it, for GQ’s sake. Okay, so I’ll apologize for writing VIRII. I’m sorry I wrote virii. I’m sorry I wrote virii. I’m sorry I wrote virii. I’m sorry I wrote virii. Indian cops are forcing miscreants to write I’M SORRY I VIOLATED LOCKDOWN in public 500 times. I am not THAT apologetic.

[Monty]

@Colibri

Damn. Now I want a Deep Cheese Bacon Potato Toast on White Bread.

What they don’t tell you is that the bread is toasted with butter on the outside face and slathered with the chain’s very own super secret concoction jam (at some chains you can ask for a sweet jam, a spicy jam, or a sweet & sour jam) on the inside face.

Wow, I miss those places. And they have plenty of vegetarian options, too, not always on the posted menu.

[thorny_locust]

I am going to throw in my own pedantic grumble:

“Cite” and “site” are not the same word.

Yes, your cite can be a (web)site. But they’re still different words, with different meanings.

[Acsenray]

@thorny_locust

I am going to throw in my own pedantic grumble:

“Cite” and “site” are not the same word.

Yes, your cite can be a (web)site. But they’re still different words, with different meanings.

They’re often confused with “sight.”

[psychonaut]

@RivkahChaya

A word like “butters,” to mean “varieties of butter” is a recent linguistic invention in English, and would not make sense to a Roman.

As long as we’re being pedantic, allow me to say that you are dead wrong on this point, both for English and for Latin.

Pluralizing a mass noun X to mean “kinds of X” is in no way a “recent linguistic invention” in English. It’s easy to find such constructions not only in contemporary English, but also in Early Modern English, Middle English, and even Old English. King Alfred’s 9th-century translation of The Consolation of Philosophy, for example, talks about wild birds that are tamed by offering them “ða ilcan mettas” (the same “meats”, or foods) that they are accustomed to eating in the wild.

The very same thing can be done in Latin. Cicero, for example, wrote about the various vina (wines) of Asia and the various panes (breads) supplied for ships, and Caesar wrote about various frumenta (corns) ripening. You can read more about this phenomenon throughout Chapter 1 of Olga Spevak’s The Noun Phrase in Classical Latin Prose (Brill, 2014). In short, just because no plural of virus is attested in extant Latin writings doesn’t mean that it was never pluralized for the aforementioned purpose, or that such a construction wouldn’t be readily understood in context by a native speaker. (Of course, if such a construction was used, it would be understood as “kinds of slime” or “kinds of poison” and not “tiny infectious entities”.)

[its_the_daddy]

And you’ll find many a shite cite on a shite site.

[RioRico]

@its_the_daddy

And you’ll find many a shite cite on a shite site.

With shite sight too unless recent eye surgery. On the whites.