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Plural form of words ending in -us

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Sietse Snel (talk | contribs) at 21:53, 21 November 2004 (Divide into intro, sociolinguistic aspects, arguments pro/contra acceptability; also removed arguments for correctness of "viruses" because that is not disputed). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

In English language, the normal plural of "virus" is "viruses". This form of the plural is correct, and used most frequently, both when referring to a biological virus and when referring to a computer virus.

The forms "viri" and "virii" are also used as a plural, although (much) less frequently. This article discusses the origins and sociolinguistic aspects of the words "viri" and "virii", as well as arguments for and against their acceptability as an alternative to "viruses" in the English language.

Origins and sociolinguistic aspects

The plural "virii" is frequently perceived to be founded on a misunderstanding of Latin plurals such as radii. It may have originated as whimsical usage on BBSes (see also: leet). This form is used most frequently, although not exclusively, among crackers and computer virus writers with reference to computer viruses. Most computer professionals unaffiliated with the warez, cracker, and virus writing scenes use the "viruses" form instead of the "virii" form.

The "viri" form is used less often. It is sometimes used by professionals, and can refer to both biological and computer viruses.

Arguments pro and contra the acceptability of "viri" and "virii"

Are either of "viri" or "virii" acceptable alternatives to "viruses" in the English language?

Justification for "viri" or "virii" forms

  • The spelling virii is linked to a specific technical field (computer science), and so is considered jargon.
  • The term is today an English language term, not Latin.
  • Synchronic linguistics: the Synchronic study of a language's form at a given moment, is the core of the discipline of linguistics as opposed to diachronic linguistics. Synchronic linguistics acknowledges the "viri" form as well as the historical "viruses" form.
  • The Latin form of virus never had a plural form: In antiquity the word virus had not yet acquired, of course, its current scientific meaning; rather it denoted something like toxicity, venom, a poisonous, deleterious, or unpleasant agent or principle, or poison in the abstract or general sense. (The first meaning given for this word, a slimy liquid, slime, in the most widely used Latin-English dictionaries is inaccurate; the error has been corrected in the more recent Oxford Latin Dictionary.) Nouns denoting entities that are countable pluralize (book, books); nouns denoting noncountable entities do not (except under special circumstances) pluralize (air, mood, valor). The term virus in antiquity appears to have belonged to the latter category, hence the nonexistence of plural forms. [June 1999 issue of ASM News by the American Society for Microbiology]

Counters for the "viri"or "virii" forms

  • Wikipedia (see English plural) and all English language dictionaries give the plural of virus simply as viruses.1
  • In English, the plural is normally formed by adding -s or -es, frequently in preference to a loan word's native plural.
  • In Latin, virii is not the correct plural. The "ii" ending only occurs in the plural of words ending in "ius". For instance, take radius, plural radii: the root is radi-, with the singular ending -us and the plural -i.
  • In Latin, viri is not the correct plural. The ending -i is used only for masculine nouns, not neuter ones such as virus; moreover, viri is the plural of vir, and means "men".
  • There is no extant record of virus being used in Latin in a plural form, and it is unclear how a plural might have been formed had the word acquired a meaning requiring a plural form.2 Possibilities include vira, following the pattern for neuter nouns in -um – or virus with a long "u", following the example of status. However, none of these are attested.3

Footnotes

1The same is true of specialized dictionaries, e.g.:

2There is some debate about what the rules of Latin grammar might imply about the formation of a plural. In Latin virus is generally regarded to be a neuter of the second declension, but the word is so rare that there are no recorded plurals. Possibilities include "vira" (in analog with 2nd declension) and "virus" (in analog with 4th declension masculine, although as a neuter noun the plural of virus in the 4th declension would be "virua").

3To make matters worse, it has been suggested that due to the Latin form of the word, the study of viruses should not be virology (which would be the study of the vir, "man"), but "virulogy." This spelling is extremely uncommon but it is used by a few universities.

4Also, the word 'viri' (or 'virii') does not appear in on-line English language dictionaries.


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