Why is the word "Ides," as in "the Ides of March" plural?

Factual Questions
1

Well…why is it?

In this thread, various Dopers discuss the fact that today is the Ides of March. The first post says that “The Ides of March are come.”

Really, if the Ides of March is a single day, then how come The Ides of March are come, and not is come? And what’s with the phrases “is come” and “are come” anyway? When the word “come” go from being an adjective to being a verb? Or, maybe “is come” gave rise to “has come,” and “are come” is the archaic form for “have come,” in which case it was the auxiliary verb in the verb phrase that changed.

In any case, any light you guys could shed on either of these topics would be appreciated.

2

The word “ides” comes from the earliest Roman calendar, said to have been created by Romulus, the mythical founder of Rome. The word “ides” is from the Latin “to divide.” The Ides were meant to mark the full moon, but since the solar calendar months and lunar months are of different lengths, the ides lost its original meaning. It can be used with either a singular or plural verb: http://www.bartleby.com/61/15/I0021500.html

3

Here’s a lot of additional info:
http://www.tondering.dk/claus/cal/calendar27.pdf

Also note that the Romans had only three named days in the month. The “Ides” was one of the three.

4

I did a search and the word “ides” did not appear in that link. What information on ides does it contain?

5

This is where Nott deleted his lame Ides joke. :smiley:

6

The word appears as “idus”:

7

I often ask this question when I’m stuck with certain letters in Scrabble. Ides is acceptable, ide is not. Now I know.

8

OP? Why is it plural? It is not plural. It is a name.
ides: The 15th day of March, May, July, or October or the 13th day of the other months in the ancient Roman calendar.
** ides etc. **

9

So consequently it *should *have been “… is come”?

10

It was always used as an English plural in the rhyme we learnt in Latin class at school…

in March, July, October, May, the Ides fall on the fifteenth day

11

That’s cos in that rhyme you’re talking about more than one Ides. If you were talking about the Ides of March, you’d say “The Ides falls on the fifteenth day.”

12

Except in April where on the 15th (here in the USA) we get the rides of April… :smiley:

13

I don’t agree. I’d say that the rhyme is shorthand for four different sentences:

in March the Ides fall on the fifteenth day
in July the Ides fall on the fifteenth day etc.

14

Well, in German, both “to have” and “to be” are used as auxiliary verbs for this tense. Which one is used depends on the main verb; for “come”, “to be” is used. Since English and German derive from the same root, this is just an archaic holdover in English.

15

The phrase “The ides of March are come” is actually a quotation, from Julius Caesar:

“To be” is traditionally used as the auxillary for intransitive verbs, ones that don’t have an object.

The most famous phrase using this construction is used at Easter: “He is risen.”

“To have” increasingly is used as the auxillary for intransitive verbs, but still sounds odd to me in some constructions. For example, I would say, “I am gone” rather than “I have gone” but I think now it’s more a matter of style rather than prescription.

16

Scribble:

I don’t think that’s what you meant to ask, but just for the heck of it, the word “come” is nearly always a verb, and even when it’s not it doesn’t tend to be an adjective.

::tries to think of a valid expression using “come” as an adjective::

The come event?