Elvises -> Elvi(i)

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:35 AM -0400 8/7/07, Charles Doyle wrote:
>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

Are you sure that was intended as a plural and not as the ablative
singular?  Of course, that *should* have been campo:, not campi, but
maybe the ablative has fallen together with the genitive after all
these years...  (Sort of like Dative Sickness in Icelandic.)

LH

>_____________________________________________________________
>
>---- 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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