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In the English language, the standard plural of virus is virii. This is the most frequently occurring form of the plural, and refers to both a biological virus and a computer virus. Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... It has been suggested that French Wiktionary be merged into this article or section. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Standard English is a controversial term used to denote a form of written and spoken English that is thought to be normative for educated users. ... Groups I: dsDNA viruses II: ssDNA viruses III: dsRNA viruses IV: (+)ssRNA viruses V: (-)ssRNA viruses VI: ssRNA-RT viruses VII: dsDNA-RT viruses A virus is a microscopic particle (ranging in size from 20 - 300 nm) that can infect the cells of a biological organism. ... A computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without permission or knowledge of the user. ...

The less frequent variations viri and virii are virtually unknown in edited prose, and no major dictionary recognizes them as alternative forms. Their occurrence can be variously attributed to hypercorrection formed by analogy to Latin plurals such as alumni or false analogy to Latin plurals such as radii; idiosyncratic use as jargon among a group, such as computer hackers; and deliberate word play, such as on BBSs (see, e.g.: leet). This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The Jargon File is a glossary of hacker slang. ... Word play is a literary technique in which the nature of the words used themselves become part of the subject of the work. ... Ward Christensen and the computer that ran the first public Bulletin Board System, CBBS A Bulletin Board System or BBS is a computer system running software that allows users to dial into the system over a phone line and, using a terminal program, perform functions such as downloading software and... This article does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...

To complicate matters further, viri is already used in Latin as the plural of vir, meaning "man" (thus making viri mean "men")^[1].

Plural of virus in Latin

The word virus has no classically attested plural form in Latin. In antiquity the word had not yet acquired its current meaning. It denoted something like toxicity; venom; a poisonous, deleterious, or unpleasant agent or principle; or poison in the abstract or general sense^[2]. Since virus in antiquity denoted something noncountable, it was a mass noun. Mass nouns, such as air, valor, and helpfulness in English, pluralize only under special circumstances, hence the nonexistence of plural forms.^[3] It has been suggested that Count noun be merged into this article or section. ...

Further, it is unclear how a plural might have been formed under Latin grammar if the word had acquired a meaning requiring a plural form. In Latin virus is generally regarded to be a neuter of the second declension, but neuter second declension nouns ending in -us (rather than -um) are so rare that there are no recorded plurals. Possibilities include vira (by analogy with 2nd declension neuters in -um such as bellum) and virus with a long u (by analogy with 4th declension masculine such as status, although as a neuter noun the plural of virus in the 4th declension would be virua). However, none of these is attested^[4]. In linguistics, grammatical gender is a morphological category associated with the expression of gender through inflection or agreement. ... In linguistics, declension is the inflection of nouns, pronouns and adjectives to indicate such features as number (typically singular vs. ...

The form virii would not have been a correct plural, since the ending -ii only occurs in the plural of words ending in -ius. For instance, take radius, plural radii: the root is radi-, with the singular ending -us and the plural -i. Thus the plural virii is that of the nonexistent word virius. The form viri might also be incorrect in Latin. The ending -i is normally used for masculine nouns, not neuter ones such as virus, although there are exceptions such as humus -"soil" which is feminine and vulgus -"crowd" which is neuter; moreover, viri (albeit with a short i in the first syllable) is the plural of vir, and means "men." In linguistics, grammatical gender is a morphological category associated with the expression of gender through inflection or agreement. ...

Etymology

Virus comes to English from Latin. The Latin word virūs means "poison; venom", denoting the venom of a snake. This Latin word is probably related to the Greek ios -"to rust" and the Sanskrit word visha -"toxic, poison". The Sanskrit language ( , for short ) is an old Indo-Aryan language from the Indian Subcontinent, the classical literary language of the Hindus of India[1], a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and one of the 23 official languages of India. ...

Use of the form virii

While the word viruses is more often used in medical and professional literature, the form virii remains popular in some Internet communities. There may be several reasons for the use of this word even when it is known to be unusual.

Leet-speak is the name given to variations on languages where frequent intentional misspellings are common, even using numbers and symbols to replace the letters of a word. These languages developed in an environment where plaintext occurrences of certain words were bound to attract unwanted attention; the tradition of intentional, sometimes flashy, misspellings originated as a way of communicating semi-steganographically on bulletin boards. This article does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Steganography is the art and science of writing hidden messages in such a way that no one apart from the intended recipient knows of the existence of the message; this is in contrast to cryptography, where the existence of the message itself is not disguised, but the content is obscured. ... Well-used bulletin board on the Infinite Corridor at MIT, November 2004. ...

The creation of plural forms by tongue-in-cheek stretching of English plural 'rules' is popular among hackers, sometimes as a way of marking a term as community jargon. See boxen and mouses for the most visible examples. Other examples, whether widely used or not, are easily recognized and deciphered, and it is well understood that these irregular (or hyper-regular) plurals are not errors but examples of geek humor. Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, published in 1984 by Steven Levy introduced the term hacker and its origins to broader usage. ... 1. ... Operating a mechanical 1: Pulling the mouse turns the ball. ... Computer related humor is a branch of humor that nerds and geeks might find amusing but other people might not understand. ...

Usage of virii within Internet communities has met with some resistance, most notably by Tom Christiansen, a figure in the Perl community, who researched the issue and wrote what eventually became referred to in various online discussions as the authoritative essay on the subject, favoring viruses instead of virii. The impetus of this discussion was the potential irony that the use of virii could be construed as a claim of superior knowledge of language when in fact more detailed research finds the naive viruses is actually more appropriate. Tom Christiansen (also nicknamed tchrist) is a well-known Unix developer and user especially known for his many contributions to the Perl programming language. ... Perl is a dynamic programming language created by Larry Wall and first released in 1987. ...

The word 'Virii' is mainly used by those most computer literate rather than the average computer user.

Notes

The University of Notre Dame IPA: is a Roman Catholic institution located in Notre Dame, Indiana, immediately northeast of South Bend, Indiana, United States. ... February 26 is the 57th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ... Virology, often considered a part of microbiology or of pathology, is the study of organic viruses: their structure and classification, their ways to infect and exploit cells to reproduce and cause disease, the techniques to isolate and culture them, and their potential uses in research and therapy. ...

References

• Tom Christiansen. The definitive treatise on the plural of “Virus” (mirror). Retrieved on 2 January 2005.
• Rob Rosenberger. Computer Viruses and False Authority Syndrome. Virus Myths. Retrieved on 19 February 2007.
• virus. Free On-line Dictionary of Computing. Retrieved on 2 January 2005.
• virus. The On-line Medical Dictionary. Retrieved on 2 January 2005.
• Tom Christiansen. Discussion regarding the plural of virus. Retrieved on 2 January 2005.
• What is the plural of virus?. reference.com FAQ. Retrieved on 2 January 2005.
• Jonathan de Boyne Pollard. "The plural of 'virus' is 'viruses'". Frequently Given Answers. Retrieved on 2 January 2005.
• Eric S. Raymond. Jargon Construction: Overgeneralization. The Jargon File. Retrieved on 2 January 2005. — a discussion of the playful use of grammar among hackers