Dazbo Posted July 17, 2006 Share Posted July 17, 2006 Sorry, but I've finally snapped. Is the correct plural of Forum Fora? Cos forums seems terribly wrong to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterT Posted July 17, 2006 Share Posted July 17, 2006 Sorry, but I've finally snapped. Is the correct plural of Forum Fora? Cos forums seems terribly wrong to me. Well, I was not particularly good at Latin, but my dictionary suggests (if I am reading it correctly!) that the plural of Forum is Fori. However, we would never use that in English, would we? Regards, Peter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woody Posted July 17, 2006 Share Posted July 17, 2006 Sorry, but I've finally snapped. Is the correct plural of Forum Fora? Cos forums seems terribly wrong to me. See..... Fora Vs Forums ....personally I don't care except that if you said "Fora" I probably wouldn't know what you were talking about for a minute or two. I think the question is do you want to be understood? It's also worth bearing in mind that once you go down the pedant's path you give everybody the right to query every bit of the language you use. For instance, should somebody who insists on the use of "fora" instead of "forums" be using words such as "cos", or for that matter starting a sentence with (implied by use of "Cos") the word "Because"? Beware of the dangerous path you are taking - it leads to madness! - W Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Wild Posted July 17, 2006 Share Posted July 17, 2006 Sorry, but I've finally snapped. Is the correct plural of Forum Fora? Cos forums seems terribly wrong to me. Well, I was not particularly good at Latin, but my dictionary suggests (if I am reading it correctly!) that the plural of Forum is Fori. However, we would never use that in English, would we? Regards, Peter. Well, my memory from so many years ago is less than perfect, but as I recall, 'fori' would be the plural of the masculine noun forus, while 'fora' would be the plural of the neutral noun forum. I am sure it was not a feminne noun. That of course is for the first person, with the noun as subject. For the third person with the noun as object, I believe the neutral word is the same, and the masculine word is hm, can't remember, sorry - John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterT Posted July 18, 2006 Share Posted July 18, 2006 Well, my memory from so many years ago is less than perfect, but as I recall, 'fori' would be the plural of the masculine noun forus, while 'fora' would be the plural of the neutral noun forum. I am sure it was not a feminne noun. That of course is for the first person, with the noun as subject. For the third person with the noun as object, I believe the neutral word is the same, and the masculine word is hm, can't remember, sorry - John Hi John, Well I did say that I wasn't particularly good at Latin. Let's hope that a "rule" is not passed whereby, for one day of the year, all Forum correspondence takes place in that language. Regards, Peter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Musical Sore Posted April 13, 2007 Share Posted April 13, 2007 We shouldn't be worrying about this irrelevant question. Let's get out there and play our concertinae ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimLucas Posted April 13, 2007 Share Posted April 13, 2007 Sorry, but I've finally snapped. Apparently. Is the correct plural of Forum Fora? Cos forums seems terribly wrong to me. "Correct" in what language? My NuDansk (literally "Now Danish") dictionary says any of "forumer", "forummer", or "fora" is correct. Since I'm an American but not a Latin American, I think "forums" is perfectly fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robin Harrison Posted April 17, 2007 Share Posted April 17, 2007 Dazbo, I think the answer to your question is; would you sing ... : "Forums a jolly good fellow" .....or "Foris a jolly good fellow" ? I hope that helps. Anon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterT Posted April 17, 2007 Share Posted April 17, 2007 Dazbo, I think the answer to your question is; would you sing ... : "Forums a jolly good fellow" .....or "Foris a jolly good fellow" ? I hope that helps. Anon So, was I right, after all? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anglogeezer Posted April 18, 2007 Share Posted April 18, 2007 If the plural of "sheep" is "sheep" then why cannot the plural of "forum" be "forum" ?? Just so long as we don't get to the stage of some genealogical groups where arguements about the plural of "census" can rumble on for decades!! regards Jake Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimLucas Posted April 18, 2007 Share Posted April 18, 2007 If the plural of "sheep" is "sheep" then why cannot the plural of "forum" be "forum" ?? Jake, how many person do you know who have two or more child? Not an issue of "cannot be", but simply of "is not". Not all English words form their plurals in the same way, and the "rules" of grammar are derived from common speech, not the other way around. That's why a few (but very few) English words have more than one "officially" accepted plural. Not everyone agrees, though, and that disagreement provides something forum to argue about. Just so long as we don't get to the stage of some genealogical groups where arguements about the plural of "census" can rumble on for decades!! Proposed plural of "census": censorable Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henrik Müller Posted April 19, 2007 Share Posted April 19, 2007 Sorry, but I've finally snapped. Is the correct plural of Forum Fora? Cos forums seems terribly wrong to me. Hi, guys - see image (Oxford American Dictionaries/Mac OSX) /Henrik Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ivan Viehoff Posted April 19, 2007 Share Posted April 19, 2007 We have many loan-words from other languages in English, but for some odd reason it seems mainly to be the Latin ones where some people seem to think it "correct" to use the Latin inflection for the plural. Even obviously Italian words like solo and aria take an English plural. To bat off the pedants, I acknowledge that there are a few non-Latin plurals that have been adopted by some: some mathematicians refer to "lemmata", but mainly to ridicule those who use "lemmae". Though they would never think of forming the Greek plural of "atom", etc. If you try to be consistent about using Latin inflections, there are lots of terrible traps, like data, octopus, omnibus, genus, rebus, index, species, etc, etc. We come to the conclusion that the use of Latin plurals is merely an affectation, probably adopted because until not that long ago Latin was the language of discourse in scholastic circles, and thereby a mechanism of social elevatoin over those not schooled in Latin. The use of English plurals is not ignorance, it is correct and sensible, and I promote it. But established use means I'm not going to start saying "agendums" instead of "agenda" or "datums" instead of "data", and if you call me inconsistent I don't care. Other languages have no qualms about using their own inflections. If you go to the Czech republic, you will see books for sale by authors such as Agatha Christieová. In Swahili, the word for "bollard" is "kipilefiti" (pronounced keepylefty): its plural is "wipilefity" because in Swahili words starting with a k have a plural in w. If the plural of "sheep" is "sheep" then why cannot the plural of "forum" be "forum" ?? Because all words in English form the plural by the default method (which includes "add s to a word ending in m") unless there is an established different form. You will in general find that in all languages no one has any difficulty knowing how to form the plural of a new word added to the language - there is always a default method. Children who say "sheeps" and "gooses" are just applying the default method until they learn the established form. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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