Latin plurals

[volks76]

If the plurals of gymnasium are gymnasia, premium are premia and stadium are stadia, is the plural form of forum fora?

[Quizmonster]

Yes...though forums is equally correct, just as gymnasiums, premiums etc are.

[tell-me-more]

They're all taken from latin and some will insist that the plurals should end in -a but I think it depends on the word and the audience. To me, bacteriums would not sound right, nor agendums instead of agenda nor stadiums instead of stadia. On the other hand, I'd be premiums and forums. It can be difficult in some cases to know whether it's better to risk sounding pretentious or ignorant.

[Mr Songman]

No help this....Just funny!

LATIN PLURALS IN ENGLISH

There were two fora on virii at the last computer seminar I attended, but I had to visit several auditoria before I obtained the datum I was looking for. While there, I bumped into an old alumna from my alma mater, and we had several colloquia about the best criterium for eliminating these parasitical conundra. We decided that the hackers would declare no moratoria on their insidious attacks, and that virii would be around for at least the next couple of millennia.

I told her that afterwards I wanted to visit the two planetaria in town, and she told me that she and her husband were going to see couple of aquaria or a few musea. One of them had an exhibit on oriental abaci which sounded fascinating.

Our curricula were different so we went our separate ways, but met later for dinner where we clogged our aortae with steak and lobster under the glimmering light of a beautiful candelabrum.

[Zevon]

Officially it would be fora using it as a true Latin word it is 2nd declension and forum is singular accusative, for the plural it would indeed be fora in the sense that we use it.

[volks76]

Thanks everyone, great story Mr. Songman, it puts it in a nutshell..

[Silvabod]

Depends whether you are English (Briotish) or American.

There's an ABOMINATION called "Webster's Dictionary" first published in the USA in about 1896, which is the direct root of all American deviant spellings (he purported to "simplify" the English language by removing all surplus letters - "color" for colour", etc etc - it became the standard for teaching English in the USA.

It also promotes "fora" as the plural for "forum", BUT the only place you'll ever see it used is in the USA - (same rationale - he standardardised latin words ending "-um" to pluralise to "-a" without exception!) Premia, in Chambers, is a "rare" plural form (= derived from Webster?)

Anopther "classic" Websterism is "idem" - in a column, we use "ditto" for repeats. I challenged a Belgian (with perfect fluent English) who used this form in a report, to be told that their English was taught using Webster's dictionary as reference!

[JamesEverton]

Fowler's gives 'forums' as the correct plural (also 'premiums'). It also indicates that 'conundrum' is not from the Latin, so 'conundra' in Mr Songman's example is incorrect (I know that it's a joke story!).

[reinganum]

I'd go with forums (pace Fowler). Normally if it is a technical or scientific word, or a word only recently coined from the Latin, then the Latin form should be used. But if it is a long-recognized English word then it should take an English-style plural.

Incidentally forum is 2nd declension neuter, hence the ending in -a for the plural.

I agree that both stadiums and stadia are correct but again stadium has been an English word for so long that I'd use stadiums for preference.

However we should still remember that both agenda and data are plural and construct sentences accordingly!

[flubber]

Forumzez?

[kepla]

Yes, people forget about agenda and data are plurals - so they will talk about 'an item on an agenda' instead of 'an agendum' and 'a piece of data' instead of 'a datum'. I guess it is like going into a green-grocers and asking for 'one of those cabbages' instead of 'a cabbage'. I know that when explorers travel through new territory they often discover exciting flora and fauna. Does this mean that a single plant is a florum and a single animal and faunum ? ? ?

[jno]

flora and fauna are singular, though they are 'mass nouns' - words meaning 'a collection of', in effect. Fauna was a goddess. The Latin for flower was flos, and flora comes from this. The pluras would probably be floras and faunas (if, say, you wanted to say different countries had different floras and faunas).

Criteria is the plural of the Greek criterion.

Data is often used with a plural verb, but agenda never does; it's become a singular word.