Newsgroups: sci.lang
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From: jcf@world.std.com (Joseph C Fineman)
Subject: Bizarre error: "formulum"
Message-ID: <E2J4JE.18n@world.std.com>
Summary: Query about a reversed extension
Keywords: accidence, plural, inflection
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 23:14:02 GMT
Lines: 14

In a paper I was editing a while ago, whose author was not a native
speaker of English (or, presumably, Latin), I encountered the
following:

    Formulum (3.9)-(3.10) mean that...

It _seems_ the idea is: since (e.g.) the plural of "cranium" is
"crania", the plural of "formula" must be "formulum".

Are there any languages in which inflections are actually toggled in
that manner?  (Professor Quine once proposed to refer to the Semitic
scripts as _ebiscerated_ because they are missing the vowels %^).  Not
quite the same thing.)

