Elvises -> Elvi(i)

[Charles Doyle]

When I was in college in the 1960s, it was fashionable to use the (apparent) plural "campi" [-paI] in singular reference to the campus ("It's good to be back on the old campi after that horrible trip"). The form was most often understood jocularly, I believe--at least among those who had some Latin.

--Charlie
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---- Original message ----
>Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 19:43:41 -0400
>From: "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
>Subject: Re: Elvises -> Elvi(i)
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
>---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
>Subject:      Re: Elvises -> Elvi(i)
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>>I don't think I'd been aware of this one until I heard a cousin use
>>it jokingly today, but it seems a popular plural of Elvis (as in
>>Elvis impersonators or "tribute artists") is Elvi, and I see that it
>>is also frequently rendered with two i's, Elvii (Googling {Elvis
>>"Elvi"} gets 91,300 hits, but some of those might be typographical
>>truncations; {Elvis Evlii} gets 9,850).
>
>Cf. "stewardi" for "stewardesses". Sometimes it's just a joke, but ....
>
>>So this is a kind of double-barreled one here: the evidently
>>tongue-in-cheek rendering of "Elvises" as "Elvi", which has been
>>going on for I'm not sure how long (anyone?), and the mistaken use of
>>-ii rather than -i as the plural of -us, which I have the impression
>>of seeing with growing frequency of late, but of course I have no
>>data to confirm that impression, and it would be bloody difficult to
>>measure this one suitably.
>
>Plural of "virus": "viri" or "virii"? Of course it is neither,
>facilitating measurement for this one word, maybe. "Virii" seems to
>be the more popular based on quick naive Google.
>
>In theory "octopi" vs. "octopii" is similar but I guess "octopi" has
>been used so much that it's become sort of 'correct'.
>
>I don't know exactly why "-ii" often occurs instead of "-i". Is the
>_typical_ person wrongly doubling the "i" really the person who has
>such things as "genii" in his everyday vocabulary?
>
>Another common event: double pluralization, e.g., "diverticulum" >
>plural "diverticula", taken as 1st declension singular, > plural
>"diverticulae".
>
>Another: wrong singularization, e.g., "mitochondria" >
>"mitochondrium", "nares" > "nare".
>
>-- Doug Wilson
>
>
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