03-03-2007, 02:38 PM
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 Re: Trace ANY cellular phone.
Robert Coe wrote:
> On Mon, 26 Feb 2007 00:56:15 -0500, Drumstick <no_thanks@you.com> wrote:
> : In article <labolide-4881A7.21023925022007@news.giganews.com>,
> : labolide@spacegmail.com says...
> : > Sorry, Drum. I've been reading the occasional virus threat story for
> : > years now. Still never been a real one.
> : > BTW - how many Windows viruses are there now?
> : >
> : >
> : Couple of things to consider folks:
> : 1. The past is no guarantee of the future.
> : 2. There was a time (and I'm old enough to remember it) when PCs didn't
> : get viri either.
>
> If you insist on getting cute with Latin words, you should at least do it in
> the right case. The accusative plural of "virus" (assuming it's a
> 2nd-declension masculine noun) is "viros".
>
> But since this use of "get" is idiomatic in English, you may be safer using
> ablative instead (as in "infected by means of a virus"). That would be
> "viris".
>
> : 3. Humility is an honorable trait....keeps you out of trouble.
> : <smile>
> :
> : As for the Mac's track record, no argument as I have never owned one.
> : Worked on one at work once (IIe no less!) and it was a nightmare! Two
> : versions of Basic, flaky hardware and SLOW as smoke even then.... See, I
> : told you I was old enough.
> :
> : May you always be free of viri....but if it's true, I'm betting it won't
> : last.
> The word virus has no classically attested plural form in Latin. In antiquity the word had not yet acquired its current meaning. It denoted something like toxicity; venom; a poisonous, deleterious, or unpleasant agent or principle; or poison in the abstract or general sense[2]. Since virus in antiquity denoted something noncountable, it was a mass noun. Mass nouns, such as air, valor, and helpfulness in English, pluralize only under special circumstances, hence the nonexistence of plural forms.[3]
>
> Further, it is unclear how a plural might have been formed under Latin grammar if the word had acquired a meaning requiring a plural form. In Latin virus is generally regarded to be a neuter of the second declension, but neuter second declension nouns ending in -us (rather than -um) are so rare that there are no recorded plurals. Possibilities include vira (by analogy with 2nd declension neuters in -um such as bellum) and virus with a long u (by analogy with 4th declension masculine such as status, although as a neuter noun the plural of virus in the 4th declension would be virua). However, none of these is attested[4].
>
> The form virii would not have been a correct plural, since the ending -ii only occurs in the plural of words ending in -ius. For instance, take radius, plural radii: the root is radi-, with the singular ending -us and the plural -i. Thus the plural virii is that of the nonexistent word virius. The form viri might also be incorrect in Latin. The ending -i is normally used for masculine nouns, not neuter ones such as virus, although there are exceptions such as humus -"soil" which is feminine and vulgus -"crowd" which is neuter; moreover, viri (albeit with a short i in the first syllable) is the plural of vir, and means "men."
>
> The genitive plural would be "virorum". But the more Latin-sounding "free from
> viruses" would again use ablative (e.g., "liber a viris").
>
> Since you're old enough to remember the good old days, you may have taken
> Latin in high school too. ;^)  |