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A comment on The Deal That Makes No Sense. Parent comment

Re:The Deal That Makes No Sense by singlow on Tuesday September 03, 2013 @09:16AM (#6320719)
Word is from Latin - Latin plural is viri. The double i would only occur if the stem already ends in i, such as radius: radi- + -us.

http://lysy2.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/WORDS.EXE?virus

In English the plural is viruses.

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Re:The Deal That Makes No Sense by itsameta4 on Tuesday September 03, 2013 @01:39PM (#6322375)
In Latin, "virus" is a mass noun, like "stuff", "water", or "poison", its original meaning. There is no attested plural. Being of originally Greek origin doesn't help matters.

In English, there's never a reason to use anything other than "viruses".

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Re:The Deal That Makes No Sense by lloeki on Tuesday September 03, 2013 @01:41PM (#6322383)
> Latin plural is viri

Actually, virus is a "mass noun" (uncountable) and has no plural. If it ever had a nominative plural it would be vira, and out of anything, viri is its genitive singular.

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Re:The Deal That Makes No Sense by dragonwriter on Tuesday September 03, 2013 @01:56PM (#6322510)
> Word is from Latin - Latin plural is viri.

No, that's the Latin plural of vir; viri means "men" not "poisons" ("virus" means "poison" in Latin.) [1]

http://www.google.com/#q=translate+viri+from+latin+to+englis...

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Re:The Deal That Makes No Sense by singlow on Tuesday September 03, 2013 @04:06PM (#6323404)
Oops. I mistook the genitive listing in Whitaker for a plural.
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