Journal pyros's Journal: Virii is not a word 5
The English word virus comes directly from the Latin word Virus. The plural form, in English, is viruses. Here is what Miriam-Webster has for virii , notice that no such word exists in the definitive dictionary of American English. In Latin, there is no plural form. Here is the Wikipedia entry on the subject. Notice that virii isn't even a Latin word, and viri is Latin for men. Unfortunately I don't have access to the Oxford English Dictionary for definitive proof in British English like I do for American English.
THANK YOU! (Score:1)
If only you knew how often I berated someone as an AC for using that despicable non-word.
It's just a shade less annoying than "boxen".
Re:THANK YOU! (Score:2)
Re:THANK YOU! (Score:1)
Re:THANK YOU! (Score:1)
English is not a dead language yet (Score:1)
--Lewis Carroll, _Through_The_Looking_Glass.
In my experience, it's better to have two names for two distinct things (such as biological viruses and computer virii) than to encourage confusion. If those two distinct things are conceptually related, it's nice for them to be etymologically related as well.
But hey, to each his own. The French have a government-sponsored body (the Ac [wikipedia.org]