OT: about butchering latin *AND* english

[Chris Rees]

On 17 June 2010 07:21, Amedee Van Gasse <amedee-ubuntu at amedee.be> wrote:
> On 17-06-10 03:08, Jan Claeys wrote:
>> Op dinsdag 15-06-2010 om 13:22 uur [tijdzone +0800], schreef Christopher
>> Chan:
>>> There are no virii that work on Linux.
>>
>> There are no "virii" on Windows either[*].
>>
>>
>> [*]<pedantic>"Virii" is a non-existent word.  The latin word "virus" is
>> already plural (and has no singular).  And in any case, "virii" could
>> only be the plural of a word like "virius", not something like "virus".
>> Oh, and of course the only correct plural of the English word "virus" is
>> "viruses".</pedantic>
>>
>>
> "viri" would be the plural of "vir" = man. Is that correct?
>

Virus is no more a plural than sheep.

The plural is often believed to be viri or even virii, but neither is
correct Latin and both are neologistic folk etymology. The word has no
plural in Latin as it is a mass noun, like oxygen or sunlight. [1]

Chris

[1] http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/virus#Usage_notes