January 28, 2007, 17:55
zmježdlittle English and less Latin
What's the deal with people inventing bogus Latin and Greek plural endings for nouns? I'd thought I'd seen it all:
octopi (
octopodes),
virii (
viruses, there is no plural of
virus in Latin),
opii (
opera),
ignorami (
ignoramuses, this is no Latin noun, it's a first person plural verb), etc., but now I've run across
penii as the pseudo-Latinate plural of
penis, which in Latin would be
penes in the nominative plural. Why, if they can't bother to learn Latin (and Greek) grammar, do the semi-literate incorrectly decline nouns? (Actually one of those ghits
supra has
cactii for
cacti or
cactuses.) Maybe it's all just
ironii.
Sic semper ingrammaticis!
January 29, 2007, 08:25
arnie<sentitiously>A little learning is a dangerous thing</sentitiously>