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Pedantic Pseudo Polyglot Plurals | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| virgule Senior Member Antarctica Joined 6840 days ago 242 posts - 261 votes  Studies: Korean | Message 9 of 29 18 April 2007 at 7:08am | IP Logged | ||
I would agree with that :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Logophiliac Newbie Ireland Joined 5431 days ago 4 posts - 4 votes Speaks: English* | Message 10 of 29 20 January 2010 at 11:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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I understand there are people who aver that the plural of Lotus (as in car) is Loti.
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| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5521 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 11 of 29 21 January 2010 at 12:30am | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, the most common pseudo-pedantic plurals seem to be based on the erroneous assumption that all Latin words ending in -us have -i in their plurals. While it is probably the case that the -us/-i declension (the second, or O declension) is the most common, at least in loan words, there are at least one other declensions that ends in -us in the singular but does not have -i in the plural, namely the forth, or U declension, with words like manus/manūs.
Loti is pretty funny, but it does seem that the original plural WAS loti, because it comes from the Greek lotos, and in Greek almost all nouns in -os are from the second declension. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6768 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 12 of 29 21 January 2010 at 2:29am | IP Logged | ||
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Wouldn't that make the plural "lotoi"?
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| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6470 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 13 of 29 24 January 2010 at 10:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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In transliteration, either "oi" or "i" is acceptable for omicron-iota, as the pronunciation is eee in Modern Greek.
English appears to have forgotten some foreign plurals that German retains, for example Komma - Kommata (commas). Also, German is the only language that I know of which retains the original Genitive "Jesu" for Jesus. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 14 of 29 25 January 2010 at 12:27am | IP Logged | ||
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The original genitive "Jesu" for Jesus is also sometimes used in Danish
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| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5521 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 15 of 29 25 January 2010 at 7:29am | IP Logged | ||
Well, I would say that the Modern Greek pronunciation is neither here nor there, English never takes account of that. My point was rather based on the fact that 'lotus' was borrowed through Latin, and Latin would use -i in the plural of of the o-declension. So: Greek: Lotos - Lotoi Latin: Lotus - Loti Pedantic English: Lotus - Loti Although, I don't really know if the plurals are correct, I just assumed that it belonged to the o-declension in Greek, and hence in Latin, since almost all Greek nouns in -os do. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6768 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 16 of 29 25 January 2010 at 10:04am | IP Logged | ||
That's where Japanese got its name for Jesus. (iesu) It came by way of Dutch. Edited by Captain Haddock on 25 January 2010 at 1:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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