What's the proper grammatical singular form of "Genii"? Genus?
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"A society grows great when old men plant trees, the shade of which they know they will never sit in. Good people do things for other people. That's it, the end." -- Penelope Wilton in Ricky Gervais's After Life -
Fish is the same singular and plural( when not talking about different groups of fish, so is deer , so I think the same applies to Genii.
Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth or easy...
... or that any man can measure the tides and hurricanes he will
encounter on the strange journey.
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Fungus --> Fungi
Focus --> Foci
Therefore,
Genus --> Genii?"A society grows great when old men plant trees, the shade of which they know they will never sit in. Good people do things for other people. That's it, the end." -- Penelope Wilton in Ricky Gervais's After LifeComment
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Didn't we go through this same thing with the plural term of Anubis and settle on Anubi, or Anubii? I say let it go. Genii works for me.
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In english it depends on the origin of the word... for example, 'octopus' is a greek word so the correct plural would actually be 'octopodes' (not octopi as people in Seaworld keep insisting).Originally posted by DigiFluid
Of course since Genii is neither latin or greek, I guess it's just whatever you prefer.
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I think the plural for Genus would be Geni not Genii.Originally posted by DigiFluid
Genii is really( in real life) the plural form of Genius, which would make sense:
Fungus-fungi
Focus-foci
Genius- Genii
Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth or easy...
... or that any man can measure the tides and hurricanes he will
encounter on the strange journey.
Spoiler:Comment
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Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.
We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One Jeep, 2 Jeeps. So One sheep, 2 sheeps?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend. If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what other language do people:
Recite at a play and play at a recital?
Ship by lorry and send cargo by ship?
Have noses that run and feet that smell?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
How is it that you need two for a pair of earrings but only one for a pair of trousers?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.
English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That’s why, when the stars are out, they’re bright, but when the lights are out, they’re dark.Comment
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