Re: FN-FORUM Font Virii Warning for Steve Laird

date posted 22nd January 2002 21:26

Not your fault--anyway, as far as I'm concerned it's a nice English word
now, singular virus, plural viruses. The educational system here gave up on
classics a long time ago. Latin was still compulsory to O level when I took
them--even if you were hopeless you had to keep it on until the fourth year.
Of course, being a historian (in another life), I needed it to read primary
sources.

Kathy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Neelesh Sonawane" [EMAIL REMOVED]
To: "freelancers" [EMAIL REMOVED]
Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2002 8:28 PM
Subject: Re: FN-FORUM Font Virii Warning for Steve Laird


> Oh.. Ok.
> I was actually under the impression that virii was singular and virus was
> plural. I've totally lost all grounding for my superiority complex when
> discussing those thingies that cause malicious damage on computers.
>
> On 22/01/02 07:26 pm, "Vendetta Sales and Admin" [EMAIL REMOVED]
> wrote:
>
> > No. It would depend what declension it was. It's actually a rare second
> > declension neuter noun, like pelagus and vulgus. Virus and vulgus DO NOT
> > HAVE PLURALS. pelagus, the sea and cetus, a sea monster, do have plurals
> > cete and pelage, so possibly you could use vire.
> > Many people assume that everything ending in -us is second declension
> > masculine, but it could quite easily be fourth declension feminine like
> > domus (house/home).
> > A second declension masculine noun virius (if there was one but there
isn't)
> > could have the plural virii. Its plural also can't be viri, as that
means
> > "of a man" (could be the same thing??).
> >
> > No way can it gain an i after the stem in the nominative or accusative
> > plural--it's just not Roman!
> >
> > Kathy
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Alan Newman" [EMAIL REMOVED]
> > To: [EMAIL REMOVED]
> > Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2002 6:12 PM
> > Subject: RE: Re: FN-FORUM Font Virii Warning for Steve Laird
> >
> >
> >> Doesn't that depend on whether virus is masculine or neutral though,
> > Kathy?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: [EMAIL REMOVED]
> >> [EMAIL REMOVED] Behalf Of Vendetta Sales
> >> and Admin
> >> Sent: 22 January 2002 17:52
> >> To: [EMAIL REMOVED]
> >> Subject: Re: Re: FN-FORUM Font Virii Warning for Steve Laird
> >>
> >>
> >> The plural of virus is NOT virii, why would it be? Sorry that's just a
pet
> >> peeve of mine. In English it is viruses, in Latin it is virus.
> >>
> >> Kathy
> >> ----- Original Message -----
> >> From: "Neelesh" [EMAIL REMOVED]
> >> To: "Steve Laird" [EMAIL REMOVED]
> >> [EMAIL REMOVED]
> >> Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2002 4:51 PM
> >> Subject: Re: Re: FN-FORUM Font Virii Warning for Steve Laird
> >>
> >>
> >>> Yeah .. spooky.
> >>> Sort it out mate.