Newsgroups: sci.lang
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From: jcf@world.std.com (Joseph C Fineman)
Subject: Re: Bizarre error: "formulum"
Message-ID: <E2xvF0.8oL@world.std.com>
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
References: <E2J4JE.18n@world.std.com> <59oige$joq@pheidippides.axion.bt.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 24 Dec 1996 22:21:00 GMT
Lines: 35

donald@srd.bt.co.uk (Donald Fisk) writes:

>: 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.)

>Is there any reason to suppose that there is?

No.  My guess (as conveyed by my use of the word "bizarre") was that
there aren't, but I thought someone might know.

>People who haven't studied Latin should stick to -s or -es when
>forming plurals.  Formulas is perfectly good English (and, for that
>matter, Latin acc. pl.).

I agree, but this particular error (if my interpretation of it is
correct) is evidence of a kind of generalization that I had not known
to exist.

>I've seen apparati, syllabi and agendae (the last one a plural of a
>plural), and for some reason virii and penii(!).

Not to mention nucleii and (appositely) ignorami.

The ancient Romans were not above the "agendae" maneuver, or so I once
read.  It seems they made "opera" (plural of the neuter "opus") into a
feminine singular & then supplied it with a plural "operae".
"Agenda", however, is a singular only in English, and therefore needs
a plural only in English: "agendas".

---  Joe Fineman    jcf@world.std.com

||:  If wishes were horses, there would be an easy explanation  :||
||:  for all this horseshit.                                    :||
