* "Michael J. Hußmann" <michael_at_michael-hussmann.de> on Sat, 12 Oct 2002
| According to my dictionary of classical Latin, the plural of "virus" is
| in fact "viri",
Just because a Latin word ends in "us" does not mean that the plural
replaces it with "i". The plural of "corpus" is "corpora", not "corpi".
But I am curious: what does your dictionary list for plural forms of
pelagus and vulgus?
| and it appears that the Oxford Latin Dictionary also states that "viri"
| is the correct plural form, although it was rarely used.
Try "never" instead of "rarely". That form does not appear in any classic
Latin writings. I'm not a Latin schollar myself, but the real schollars
have never found it, so this reference is dubious.
| That "viri" also happens to be the nominative plural of "vir" implies
| nothing, of course.
It implies quite a bit, actually. If viri is the plural of both vir and
virus, then use of the word would be either ambiguous or confusing. But
Latin is neither ambiguous nor confusing in proper usage, so viri cannot be
the plural of both vir and virus.
Virus may be fourth declension, not second declension. If so, and if virus
can be pluralized, then the proper plural (in Latin) is viruum.
Regardless, trying to apply Latin rules to English grammer is futile.
Modern English traces its ancestry to Western Germany, the Angles and
Saxons. It has inherited a large number of Latin words by way of French
and Dutch, but the grammer is Germanic, not Romantic. Or as I like to say,
English is German with pretentions of being French.
The correct English plural of "virus" is "viruses".
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