[preciousjeni]

Originally posted by DSTCHAOS
Serious questions: Can you and Tom tell me why campi is the plural of campus, as opposed to campuses? To my knowledge, campi has a completely different meaning.

I was looking it up and found this to be interesting:

Off the top of my head? "Campi" is the correct Latin plural, but pretentious, and "campuses" is recommended for English usage. (I've never heard "campusi" and can say without fear that it's wrong.) Let's go to the videotape.

The 11C doesn't have a pluralization note on "campus," which leads me to believe that the standard English plural is in play ("campuses"). Garner, in his note on plurals: "One reliable guide is this: if in doubt, use the native-English plural ending in -s." He goes on to observe that pluralizing Latin nouns is a hypercorrection that often winds up in-correct (viz. "octopus," which many people pluralize as "octopi" when the actual Latin plural is "octopodes").

Long story short: "campuses."

And while I've got you all here -- if you do insist on hypercorrecting Latinate nouns, please pronounce them correctly. To cite the most frequently heard example, "alumni" is pronounced "alum-nee," NOT "alum-neye." "Alumnae" is pronounced "alum-neye," not "alum-nay." Masculine Latin plurals, "ee"; feminine Latin plurals, "eye." So-called Church Latin is not correct in that regard.

Also: the plural of "penis" is "penes," NOT "peni." "Peni" would indicate a plural of neuter noun "penus," which means supplies or provisions. Get cute with the Latin plurals all you want, but know what you're doing.

http://www.earlygirl.com/vi021804.shtml

See also: http://dacnet.rice.edu/projects/ling...dex=37&Type=II