![]() Terminus: termini or terminuses Words ending in on, plural -a or -ons Narcissus: narcissi or narcissuses or narcissus Hippopotamus: hippopotamuses or hippopotami ![]() Symposium: symposiums or symposia Words ending in us, plural -uses or -iĪlumnus/alumna: alumni or alumnae ( alumnus refers to a man and alumna to a woman, alumni pertains to men or to men and women and alumnae to women alumni is often employed in the singular, and alum/alums are used informally as gender-neutral singular and plural forms) Medium: mediums or media ( media is the correct alternative to refer to forms of expression or information or in biological contexts) Zoo: zoos Words ending in um, plural -a or -umsĪgendum: agenda or agendums ( agenda is almost invariably used in place of the singular form, and agendums is rare)ĭatum: data or datums ( data is often used as a mass noun, taking a singular verb and being substituted by a singular pronoun) Weirdo: weirdos Words ending in oo, plural -oos Virtuoso: virtuosos or virtuosi Words ending in o, plural -os or -oesĬalypso: calypsos or calypsoes (the former spelling pertains to either the flower or the music style, and the latter form applies only to the music form) Graffito: graffiti (the plural form is almost invariable used in place of the singular form) Matrix: matrices or matrixes Words ending in o, plural -os or -i Ganglion: ganglia or ganglions Words ending in is, plural -es Plateau: plateaus or plateaux Words ending in ion, plural -ia Vortex: vortices or vortexes Words ending in eau, plural -eaus or -eauxīureau: bureaus or bureaux (the latter form is rare for this word and the other two in this category) Vertebra: vertebrae or vertebras ( vertebrae is sometimes incorrectly used to refer to a single vertebra) Words ending in ex, plural -exes or -ices Nebula: nebulae or nebulas: the former ending is employed in astronomy, and the latter applies in medical contexts Words ending in a, plural -s or -aeĪntenna: antennas or antennae (only antennae is correct for the sensory organs on animals antennas in more common in other contexts) When two or more alternatives are listed, the first is the more (or most) common. Here’s a guide to plural forms for Latin words, identifying, for more than a hundred nouns of Latin origin and a few similarly constructed terms from other languages, which ending among two or three alternatives is preferred for particular words or in which contexts various alternative forms are employed. Preference for Latin or English plural endings is inconsistent in similarly constructed words, as is the presence of alternative forms at all. Lawyer, author, and dictionary editor Bryan Garner once wrote a post on Law Prose about subpoenas, for example, and many readers had the audacity to suggest that the master of grammar had erred when he failed to pluralize the word “subpoena” as “subpoenae.” The hyper-correctors got theirs when he responded with a correction of his own.Pluralization of Latin-based nouns is a complicated field. Hypercorrections are almost as common as word nerds. The -us in octopus is not the Latin noun ending that switches to -i in the plural, but the Greek pous (foot).” These mistakes are often the result of linguistic pretensions, a desire to sound particularly erudite that ends up going awry.Īs Steven Pinker puts it in his 1999 book Words and Rules, “he attempt to foist ‘proper’ Greek and Latin plurals has bred pseudo-erudite horrors such as axia (more than one axiom), peni, rhinoceri, and. ![]() This is an error of the sort known to grammarians as a “hypercorrection.” A hypercorrection is the erroneous use of a word form or pronunciation based on a false analogy with a correct form.
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