"corpii" as plural of "corpus"

Herb Stahlke hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM
Wed Mar 10 13:02:17 UTC 2010


72k rgh for sylabii.  I tried to convince colleagues the plural should
be "syllabontes," with little success.  I guess with a faux-Greek loan
we can do what we want.

Herb

On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 10:47 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "corpii" as plural of "corpus"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 9:44 PM -0500 3/9/10, James Harbeck wrote:
>>Yet another manifestation of the (it seems to me) rather common
>>belief that the plural of any -us is an -ii (not an -i, as it would
>>often be; it seems that the more marked -ii, as in radii, has stuck
>>in many people's heads as more right).
>
> Sad but no doubt true, which means it must be pronounced
> "corpy-eye"--which I have to admit would appropriately creepy!
>
> LH
>
>>  I've run across the -ii quite
>>a few times, though I've never noted corpii before (korpi, yes, which
>>is Finnish for "forest", but not corpii).
>>
>>James Harbeck.
>>
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