> > > Neither Miriam-Webster nor Cambridge list plural form of 'virus'. But > > there's simple rule to make plurals in English: append 's' to a noun, > > and if the noun ends in 's', then append 'es'. Or I'm missing > > something. > > I promised myself I wouldn't get involved in this seriously OT subject, > but I need to point out that adding 's' / 'es' doesn't always work, > especially for words derived directly from Latin/Greek. Often even > natives get it wrong, saying "stadia" instead of "stadiums", however it > is true that the plural of "datum" is "data" [ OT number 2 a lot of IT > people miss this point and thing that the word data is singular ]. > > The good one is agenda/agendum/agendas. All 3 words are legal English > but often get confused. Agenda = one list of many items to discuss in a > meeting; agendum = one list of one item to discuss in a meeting; agendas > = more than one list of one of more items to discuss in a meeting. > > For the same reason, the plural of referendum is referendums, not > referenda, since the number of questions on most referendums is 1 > (unless you're American - not sure about Switzerland). > > The main thing about English as a language is that as soon as you cite a > rule someone will quote a word that breaks it (what's the plural of > person?). To make it worse some words are the same in singular as in > plural. >
I suppose one could assume, judging by the lack of any plural listed, (except in American references, but they do have a knack for "altering" English spelling), that this one may be put down to personal preference :-) Matt ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by BEA Weblogic Workshop FREE Java Enterprise J2EE developer tools! Get your free copy of BEA WebLogic Workshop 8.1 today. http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=4721&alloc_id=10040&op=click _______________________________________________ Clamav-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/clamav-users
