![]() ![]() The New Latin word has both the Latinate plural abscissae and the Anglicized plural abscissas, which brings up other plural forms that include the suffix -ae and -a, along with inflections ending in -s and -es, which can orthographically transform a word. Some of these New Latin words are inflected like Medieval Latin words were however, a good number acquired fully English inflected forms as well.Ībscissa, which refers to the horizontal coordinate of a point in a plane Cartesian coordinate system that is obtained by measuring parallel to the x-axis (see illustration at definition link), is a good example. In addition (and to make things even more complicated), many words originating in science are derived from something called New Latin (e.g., octopus and phobia), a type of Latin that has been used since the end of the Middle Ages specifically for scientific classification and descriptions. Apparatus, though, has the regular English plural apparatuses but also retains in some use the Latin plural apparatus. In English, the plural of prospectus is Anglicized to prospectuses and that of status to statuses. A sampling of such words is prospectus, status, and apparatus. ![]() In Latin, these nouns belong to a group in which the singular and plural were spelled alike. However, there are quite a few Latin nouns that do not have an -i plural even in their original language that have become naturalized in the English language. And there is, in fact, a plethora of such -i Latin plurals in English: witness oculus (a word for an oval window or for a circular opening at the top of a dome) and its plural oculi, or the more common alumnus/ alumni and stimulus/ stimuli. One common misconception floating around the English language is the notion that all Latin-derived nouns that end in the suffix -us in the singular should end in -i when they are plural. ![]() The biggest rule is: there isn't one big rule. ![]()
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