Bob W wrote:
I think that the nerdy types are perfectly aware of the plural of virii, box etc. And the people who continue to say it in the "wrong" way do it because of it is part of the jargon.Hi,
This has actually nothing to do with regular languages. It's just computer lingo. The jargon of nerds, if you will.
I doubt that.
As another example, one unix, several unices. And several boxes running
a unix version is often referred to as "boxen".
It's nerd jargon if they know the standard plural and continue to use the non-standard term.
I suspect that if you did a poll the overwhelming majority of those people would know perfectly well what the English plural of 'box' is, but continue to say 'boxen' for nerdy jargon reasons.
Conversely I would guess that 0.00001% at most know the Latin plurals and the English plural and continue to say 'virii' for nerdy jargon reasons.
It's not just computer nerds. I can't count the number of non-nerdy people who think the plural of 'status' is either 'stati' or 'statii'.
But hey, I agree with you that people are stupid and say stuff wrong because they are ignorant.
Although, since the original word 'virus' in this context is originally from these nerdy people, the regular (and stupid, as you pointed out) people probably just imitate them.
/Henri
