Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Quick Guide to Latin Pluralizations in English that You Never Asked for:

If it ends in a -us, it becomes -i:
radiusradii
alumnusalumni
nucleusnuclei

If it ends in an -a, it becomes -ae:
alumnaalumnae
formulaformulae
vaginavaginae

If it ends in a -um, it becomes -a:
stratumstrata
mediummedia
datumdata

If it ends in an -is, it becomes -es:
axisaxes
crisiscrises
genesisgeneses

Exceptions (Well, not in Latin. It makes sense in Latin):
opusopera
appendixappendices
stigmastigmata
indexindices
corpuscorpora

Questions I am actually asked:
1. Yes, penis ends in an -is, so the plural is actually "penes," but no one will know what you're talking about if you say it aloud.
2. Octopus is not actually Latin but Greek, so the real but completely unused plural is "octopodes."
3. It's cacti.

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