English plurals/Latin plurals
In most cases it's perfectly acceptable to put an English suffix on a word where there is a widely-used foreign-language variant plural.

Virii is correct, but so is viruses.

Lemmata is correct, but so is lemmas. Ditto formulas/formulae.

But the one everyone (including my girlfriend) gets wrong is OCTOPI.

OCTOPI is not a word. The word 'octopus' has its roots in the Ancient Greek 'okto' meaning 'eight' and 'pos' meaning 'foot'. 'pos' pluralises in Ancient Greek to 'podes'. The Latin equivalent, 'pes', pluralises to 'pedes'. Neither 'pos' nor 'pes' pluralise to 'pi'.

So if you're going to be clever-clever and use a funky plural for octopus, it's 'octopodes'. OCTOPI is WRONG. Or you could just say 'octopuses'. Thank you and good night.

(Oh, and the same goes for split infinitives. Splinfinitives are not 'wrong' as such. They are believed to be 'wrong' by certain individuals who base their rules of English Grammar on the Latin language, which has one word infinitives that can't reasonably be split. The English infinitive has two words and can be split legitimately.)
(sjflangehound, Tue 6 May 2008, 12:58, 9 replies)

Also
Bees. That's wrong.

It should be "beez".

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Tue 6 May 2008, 13:09, closed)

I thought the correct name for a collective of octopuses was
octopussy...?
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Tue 6 May 2008, 13:11, closed)

yep
Or 'beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee'
(sjflangehound, Tue 6 May 2008, 13:15, closed)

I do like "clitorides" though
that's my favourite latin plural

if only it were true for me in real life...
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Tue 6 May 2008, 13:21, closed)

"Virii"
How the shitting fuck can virii be correct? If "virus" were a second declension Latin noun, the plural would be "viri" -although "viri" is already the plural of "vir" (man). If it were fourth declension, it would be "virus" (with a long U sound).

But it's not. It's an English noun.
(Vice Admiral Sir Charles Cockbrush KCB MBE DSO, who is finding it increasingly difficult to log into b3ta.com wants to duck your aunt and kick your puppy, Tue 6 May 2008, 13:22, closed)

Formulas?
Noooooooooo. It's ALWAYS formulae. It really gets on my tits when people say formulas. It is just laziness.
(Rotten_Cointreau is a proper scientician, Tue 6 May 2008, 13:23, closed)

On the split infinitives front
Find someone who hates them and challange them to un-split this:

In order to more than double our output, we have decided to gradually get rid of lazy workers we have employed.
(Cuthbert Annihilator, Tue 6 May 2008, 13:50, closed)

Octopodes?
Bugger me... I never knew that! I'm going to find ANY excuse to use that within the next week just to see if anyone notices.

Split infinitives never annoyed me, only those who whinge about them. It might not be "correct" by their standards of grammar but it sure as hell sounds more natural to say and takes less effort to think about.
(keyboardman, Tue 6 May 2008, 14:17, closed)

What about Platypuses...
thatd be playtpuses right?
(spent.fish flipping and gasping, Tue 6 May 2008, 15:10, closed)