On Tuesday 26 August 2003 03:40, Colin Watson wrote: > On Tue, Aug 26, 2003 at 02:01:05AM +0200, Arnt Karlsen wrote: >> ..no rule witout exeption: these 2 minutes _are_ useful in tarpits, >> to help slow vira propagation: > > That's a new plural of "virus" to me ... > > ["viri" and "virii" are both wrong. The first is made up by assuming > that "virus" is a Latin masculine second declension noun, which it's > not (it's neuter), and "viri" is actually the plural of "vir" and > means "men". The second is just utterly weird, though strangely > popular, and is constructed on top of a made-up second declension > noun, "virius". "vira" is probably better than anything else, > because at least it's neuter, but really seems more like the plural > of "virum". Anyway, there are no recorded instances of a Latin > plural of "virus", because its meaning back then was abstract and > not something you could really pluralize. The only English plural of > the word is simply "viruses". > > This concludes today's pedantry.]
Sorry for being late, just some more pedantry: virus, -i n. (no plural) Coming from old-indian višám via old-greek viros (sorry, don't know how to enter the correct letters and accents) into latin. The greek word means simply "venom / poison", whereas the latin word can be translated as "slime", "poison", or as a metaphor for "slaver / foam / venom" (compare Vergilius: destillat ab inguine virus), the old-indian word on the other hand just had an abstract meaning. I'd think the English plural is "viruses", in German at least it is "Viren", and nothing else ;) Thanks to Mr. Schüller and Ms. Altenburg for six years of boring Latin lesson, and no, I still don't think Caesar was a great man. Back to work, sorry for pedantry, Flo -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
