Latin Forums

[Rakysh]

Ok, I've searched around for a thread on this, and it's been mentioned (most recently in the intro thread) but afaik, there hasn't been a specific thread for it.

Many people here use the Latin nominative plural of the word forum to describe the whole fora. As the Latin literate here will know, the meaning of a word is heavily influenced by it's ending. So saying, for example "On the fora" is incorrect- it should be "foris".

However, obviously you can't expect everyone to know what the ablative plural of forum is, or what it means. So the question is what should people say?

(I realise I am being extremely anally retentive about this, but I just want to know what the general consensus is on what it should be.)

[goofy]

The usual plural of forum is forums. The OED has no citations for fora.
imo since we are writing English, we should decline our nouns like English, not like some other language.

[existential_elevator]

...well, unless we're declining forum like a greek neuter noun. It sort of works with a latin neuter, too, but I'm not as sure of the rules.

[Rakysh]

I'm afraid I don't know greek declensions. So Forums it is?

[ZLVT]

Dude I started a (well maybe 3) threads on this before. The ocncensus is just treat everything like an English word. Obviously I don't, and expect all my friends to use the Latin/greek forms at least in nominative, but most people will treat them like simple English words.

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[Rakysh]

My bad. Sorry.

[ZLVT]

happens to the best of us.

[Bobber]

The forum/fora thing is a bit of a long-running meme here, and there are actually working fora (*snicker*) on http://fora.xkcd.com that are an exact copy of http://forums.xkcd.com with all it contains.

People here say either forums or fora, and usually only new members of the fora comment on why they are saying fora.

And yep, there are several other threads, as well as threads not made specifically to discuss this but which turned into a such a discussion anyway.

[Gaydar2000SE]

No, 'on the foris' is incorrect, it's incorrect because in English, the ablative case does not follow after 'on', regardless if in Latin, it follows after its translation in the place of no motion (in).

In English, after 'on' follows the objective case, in all common nouns, the objective case is syncretic with the nominative case, some pronouns however to make a distinction 'on him' or 'on whom'.

However that's not the annoying part, the annoying part is people who say such things as 'fora member' or use 'fora' as a singular, in fact, they did so in the first example. In English the modifier of a compound noun is always in its grammatical singular form. Even nouns which can only occur in plural as in 'stairs' and 'staircase' or 'trousers' and 'trouser button'. However some words are morphologically plural in English whilst grammatically singular, such as 'mathematics' and 'mathematics student', we say 'mathematics is ...' and not 'mathematics are ...', 'fora member' is thus incorrect usage and stems from the fact that people like to use the word without really registering it mentally as a plural, thus things like that occur, as any one notices that 'cars door' instead of 'car door' feels uneasy. The same applies to 'forums member' where 'forum member' is the only available option. The only exception I know is 'arms race', but that's a misspelling as it's actually 'arms' race', but written down incorrectly and the spelling error propagated. It's a race of arms. And 'fora's member' is of course decent, though some might say 'fororum member'?

Also, 'forums' is not correctly declined English either, though this practice is common place, the argument against such practices is that in 'forum', 'forum' is actually not the stem of the noun, that is for-, and the -s ending is attached tot the stem in English, the -um ending denoted nominative/accusative singular in Latin. This is not clearly visible in forum but take 'formula', some might say 'formulas' other 'formulae', the point is that such derivatives as 'formulize' or 'formulate' can be formed, we can even make random nonsense up like 'formuling' or 'formular', neither of those keeps the 'a' to some thing like 'formula-ize' or 'formula-ate', as the -a is not part of the stem of the word, rather it is a grammatical ending marking the singular, like -s marks the plural, which happened prominently in Latin, but not that much in English. Many people therefore advocate the best practice is to simply loan the stem and apply English endings to it in 'form' and 'forms' from Latin 'forma' and 'formae' or even our -al/-ar ending which ultimately comes from the Latin -alis/-aris with plural -ales/-ares. Or 'correction' and the like coming from Latin correctio with plural correctiones.

[Zamfir]

Well, you could call a forum a fore, plural fores.

[Gaydar2000SE]

Well, you could call a forum a fore, plural fores.

That's how it's done quite often yes.

[gmalivuk]

In English the modifier of a compound noun is always in its grammatical singular form.

No, it's not. And it's more often not when the plural is irregular. Purple People Eater, for example. There's an intuition that we should use stems rather than declined forms in compounds, and that's why you don't see regular plurals there (usually). But irregular plurals are remembered as separate words which just happen to be connected to the singular form, and so we're less inclined to find their use in modifiers or compound nouns to be ungrammatical.

If you object that People Eater is also incorrect, would you care to explain why the marks made by teeth are teethmarks and not toothmarks? Compounds with "mice" are also relatively common, though not standard as "teethmarks" is.

Even nouns which can only occur in plural as in 'stairs' and 'staircase' or 'trousers' and 'trouser button'.

What about "almsgiver" and "blues rocker" and "clothesbrush" and "painstaking" and "humanities department"?

The only exception I know is 'arms race'

The only thing that means is that you'll have to think harder next time. Also, [citation needed] for your claim about its etymology and origin as a possessive. A brief search turned up no such information.

Also, 'forums' is not correctly declined English either, though this practice is common place, the argument against such practices is that in 'forum', 'forum' is actually not the stem of the noun, that is for-, and the -s ending is attached tot the stem in English, the -um ending denoted nominative/accusative singular in Latin.

That would be all well and good, except that we took "forum" as a complete word in English, not as a stem with a suffix.

Many people therefore advocate the best practice is to simply loan the stem and apply English endings to it

The best practice is to stop worrying about how people borrowed words hundreds of years ago. If you want to coin your next foreign-influenced word by applying English endings to only the stem instead of to the form most commonly seen, go right ahead. But that's no reason to go and try to undo centuries of linguistic history because a borrowed word doesn't happen to correspond in what you think is the most logical way possible to its original language.

And if you are going to worry so much about the history of your own language, you shouldn't be racist and only focus on borrowed words. What about a double plural like children? Is that something which is also "incorrect" despite being "commonplace" (one word, not two)? After all, childer was already plural, so adding -en to it was as incorrect a move as saying "oxen" or "dices" or "feets".

[Gaydar2000SE]

In English the modifier of a compound noun is always in its grammatical singular form.

No, it's not. And it's more often not when the plural is irregular. Purple People Eater, for example. There's an intuition that we should use stems rather than declined forms in compounds, and that's why you don't see regular plurals there (usually). But irregular plurals are remembered as separate words which just happen to be connected to the singular form, and so we're less inclined to find their use in modifiers or compound nouns to be ungrammatical.

'Feet eater' makes no sense then again, and people is also a singular, and 'purple people eater' to me can only stand for 'a people', 'people person eater' is used for multiple humans in my language feeling.

If you object that People Eater is also incorrect, would you care to explain why the marks made by teeth are teethmarks and not toothmarks? Compounds with "mice" are also relatively common, though not standard as "teethmarks" is.

Point, it's common usage google says to me yes, but it sounds completely unnatural to me. I'd use 'tooth marks' but actually sooner 'bite marks'.

Even nouns which can only occur in plural as in 'stairs' and 'staircase' or 'trousers' and 'trouser button'.

What about "almsgiver" and "blues rocker" and "clothesbrush" and "painstaking" and "humanities department"?

All grammatically singular, except 'painstaking', but 'cars washing' and 'emotions faking' also occurs of course because it's a verb, so gerundives are indeed an exception if putting the direct object in front of it, which can be argued to not be compounds in the truest sense but simply verbal nouns of 'to take pains'

edit: In fact 'painstaking' is not a noun, it's an adjective. It aren't gerundives, rather participles.

In the case of 'clothesbrush', it sounds awkward to me, I'd use 'clothing brush' personally. 'clothe brush' sounds even stranger.

The only exception I know is 'arms race'

The only thing that means is that you'll have to think harder next time. Also, [citation needed] for your claim about its etymology and origin as a possessive. A brief search turned up no such information.

Well, obviously there's no way to tell as the modern usage of the possessives was already in place during the formation of the word. it's simply semantics, to me it feels like 'arm's race', but that can be to that I despite your examples of which some I find quite questionable can not invision a compound in English with its modifier a grammatical plural. Except the direct object of gerundives cases.

Also, 'forums' is not correctly declined English either, though this practice is common place, the argument against such practices is that in 'forum', 'forum' is actually not the stem of the noun, that is for-, and the -s ending is attached tot the stem in English, the -um ending denoted nominative/accusative singular in Latin.

That would be all well and good, except that we took "forum" as a complete word in English, not as a stem with a suffix.

, then the 'um' part of the stem just drops off in derivatives.

Many people therefore advocate the best practice is to simply loan the stem and apply English endings to it

The best practice is to stop worrying about how people borrowed words hundreds of years ago. If you want to coin your next foreign-influenced word by applying English endings to only the stem instead of to the form most commonly seen, go right ahead. But that's no reason to go and try to undo centuries of linguistic history because a borrowed word doesn't happen to correspond in what you think is the most logical way possible to its original language.

Why not? 'correct language' is peer pressure after all. Continuing the mistakes done by those before you simply because they're commonplace equals buying fashionable brands you don't even like to be part of it.

And if you are going to worry so much about the history of your own language, you shouldn't be racist and only focus on borrowed words. What about a double plural like children? Is that something which is also "incorrect" despite being "commonplace" (one word, not two)? After all, childer was already plural, so adding -en to it was as incorrect a move as saying "oxen" or "dices" or "feets".

Ahaha, I think I said once 'If children is a plural then so is calfren', of course, the plural itself of 'childer' is quite questionable, if any thing the plural should be 'childers', which also occurs strangely and is seen as 'bad practice''.

Point about language is that 'correct language' of course doesn't exist and language academies tend to be corrupt. One most interesting example I find that in Dutch, an oft made joke is about a doctor, called a 'chirurg' in Dutch and the clue at the end is that all that time, the 'chirurg' was a woman, unexpectedly, often seen as a symptom of sexism.

Though, feeling of language can't that easily be manipulated, though the word 'chirurge' appears in no Dutch dictionary, it doesn't sound strange at all to Dutch speakers, and immediately is seen as the female equivalent. My guess on the matter is just that the academy said that what is perceived as the male version is to be applied at both genders. And people do so in formal practice, but if the language had developed naturally 'chirurge' probably existed as a female equivalent.

I'll look more into the matter of plural head nouns, though google returns them, they appear as uneasy to me. Maybe languages changes.

[gmalivuk]

Even nouns which can only occur in plural as in 'stairs' and 'staircase' or 'trousers' and 'trouser button'.

What about "almsgiver" and "blues rocker" and "clothesbrush" and "painstaking" and "humanities department"?

All grammatically singular

Um, no, none of them are singular, actually. Do you say "alms is" and "blues is" and "clothes is" and "pains is" and "humanities is"?

[goofy]

Why not? 'correct language' is peer pressure after all. Continuing the mistakes done by those before you simply because they're commonplace equals buying fashionable brands you don't even like to be part of it.

OK, but then you have to figure out which modern usages are the product of mistakes made hundreds of years ago, and which aren't. Can you do that? For every modern English usage? bridegroom is a folk etymology - it was originally brydegome. hangnail was originally angnail - ang meaning "painful". And you need a way of determining whether something was a mistake or not. When silly changed from meaning "Deserving of pity" to "weak" to "foolish", was that due to "mistakes" or "normal language change"?

[hoopsgators]

Um, no, none of them are singular, actually. Do you say "alms is" and "blues is" and "clothes is" and "pains is" and "humanities is"?

none of them IS singular ?

[Josephine]

Um, no, none of them are singular, actually. Do you say "alms is" and "blues is" and "clothes is" and "pains is" and "humanities is"?

none of them IS singular ?

No. 'Them' is very clearly plural. He was proving a point.

[hoopsgators]

hoopsgators wrote:

Um, no, none of them are singular, actually. Do you say "alms is" and "blues is" and "clothes is" and "pains is" and "humanities is"?



none of them IS singular ?



No. 'Them' is very clearly plural. He was proving a point.

the word "none" is singular. "of them" doesn't dictate the verb to be

[Lazar]

Yeah, in prescriptively correct speech, "none" is singular. (That is, you would treat "none of them" as "not one of them".)