Pedants' Paradise

[jean]

A sort of analogy with opus - opera (pl) > opera (sg)...

Interesting how the singular and plural have gone their separate ways. But I've never seen anyone offer operae as a plural for opera.

(There is a first declension opera which also means work, and by extension a day labourer. The Cambridge Latin Course uses it to mean a hired thug, I can't now remember whose.)

A friend has formed a (very good) youth choir which she calls Vox Aurum. Lots of people have told her that doesn't really mean Golden Voices, which is what she'd like it to mean, but she is impervious.

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[jean]

Velum, a sail, is often pl in Latin; so vela > la voile. Less understandably, pirum, pira > la poire. I believe the 'unsteadiness' began in Vulgar Latin ...

Very interesting! It does seem like the sort of thing you'd expect to happen.

[vinteuil]

Velum, a sail, is often pl in Latin; so vela > la voile. Less understandably, pirum, pira > la poire. I believe the 'unsteadiness' began in Vulgar Latin ...

.... and doesn't the earlier French for the male member also change gender when moving into modern French - le vit / la bite ?

[jean]

Today's been a great day for bad Latin so far - and it's still only just past lunchtime!

Delighted to be listening to what I'll swear was announced as Deus in auditorium

Must be Advent or something

[mangerton]

Today's been a great day for bad Latin so far - and it's still only just past lunchtime!

Oh dear. I've just added to it in Another Thread.

[french frank]

Interesting how the singular and plural have gone their separate ways. But I've never seen anyone offer operae as a plural for opera.

But I did once hear opi as the plural of opus. I chastised severely.

(There is a first declension opera which also means work, and by extension a day labourer.

And French has two nouns: un oeuvre and une oeuvre which I get mixed up. I think it's une oeuvre for a single work, and un oeuvre for someone's work considered collectively.

M. Vinteuil: I have no information on that.

[amateur51]

If there was not such a word before, there may well be now, if it's picked up by others. Living thing, language. Even dead language.

[gurnemanz]

A sort of analogy with opus - opera (pl) > opera (sg).

I'd never really thought about that and it explain why Italians use "opera" where we say "opus" for a work's catalogue number.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Today's been a great day for bad Latin so far - and it's still only just past lunchtime!

The day stretched to a weekend c.8am today when a caller from Wales wanted to put Holbrooke on to the Great British Music list, and told us he had hundreds of 'opi'.

Hope jean and ff caught this and treasured it

[french frank]

a caller from Wales wanted to put Holbrooke on to the Great British Music list, and told us he had hundreds of 'opi'

But it really is quite unfair on people who have small Latin and less Greek. Fungus > fungera?

[gurnemanz]

But it really is quite unfair on people who have small Latin and less Greek. Fungus > fungera?

Should be on the bad joke thread: A mushroom walks into a bar and buys everyone a drink - fun guy!

[LeMartinPecheur]

But it really is quite unfair on people who have small Latin and less Greek. Fungus > fungera?

I'd guess that the caller thought he was being really smart, and could reasonably have been expected to notice he was using a word that he - probably - had never heard anyone else use. Hadn't he heard 'opuses', a very reasonable form for an English speaker? And wouldn't 'works' have been even better in context?

[Bryn]

I'd guess that the caller thought he was being really smart, and could reasonably have been expected to notice he was using a word that he - probably - had never heard anyone else use. Hadn't he heard 'opuses', a very reasonable form for an English speaker? And wouldn't 'works' have been even better in context?

Oeuvre, surely?

[Roehre]

Oeuvre, surely?

And what about the perfectly English Output

[jean]

Hope jean and ff caught this and treasured it

I didn't. It seems rather odd to say opus at all unless you're talking about opus numbers - in which case the plural would surely opus numbers.



[Edit: Found it on iPlayer. The man says 'There are nearly 200 opi', so he does need a plural.]