I was doing some surfing today and I stumbled across somebody’s weblog entry where the person in question wrote, “indexes, not indices!” And now I can’t remember where I found it, so I must respectfully and pedantically disagree right here.
First, the dictionaries on my shelf are fine with either use. But to me more importantly, I’d tell the person in question: if you’re gonna insist that people only use “indexes,” then you’d best be consistent in your rule-applying and make sure that your indexes index only datums.
Pedantry: Latin Plurals
Okay. Your grasp of Latin is a lot better than mine. Our Director of Comp told us last year that a Latin scholar swore up and down that it was “syllabuses” and not “syllabi.” Sounds fishy to me. Your read of the situation? Don’t make me go to The Straight Dope.
I don’t think it’s so much a Latin question as it is an English usage question. Still, I’m always happy to be geeky, so I’ll say that -i is the proper masculine nominative plural for the singular noun ending in -us, and Random House 2nd Ed. Unabridged backs me up: plurals of syllabus are “-buses, -bi“. In academia, perhaps the most apt example is the gender bias inherent in the word alumnus and its plural alumni, quickly remedied should you visit the campus of Smith College and see their Alumnae (pl. of alumna, the female form) House. Datum is considered neuter (participle of “to give”, so “thing given”), and neuter nouns take the -a nominative plural: hence, the plural data. See also medium, media; stadium, stadia.
But you got me worried, so I went and got my spanking-new MLA Handbook, and I’m afraid matters look bleak indeed. Quoth Joseph Gibaldi: “If the dictionary gives more than one plural form for a word (appendixes, appendices), use the first listed” (80).
I stand, sadly, corrected. Heartbroken, even. My only hope is to find a dictionary more to my liking, that lists those fusty pedantic old Latin forms first. Or a usage guide — what would Chicago say? APA, maybe?
Actually, I think you’re on the right track: there is, in fact, a power higher than the MLA. Gibaldi would have to listen to Cecil. Wouldn’t he?
Yeah, what does Chicago say!!
MLA is ruling the world because it’s easier but I don’t like MLA. I hate those parens invading my work.
If you look in the OED, you’ll find “indices” is the preferred form for all plurals of index except those referring to the index at the end of a book, for which “indexes is usual.”
Also, regarding the plural of “syllabus” – it depends on whether you believe the word has a Greek origin (in which case the plural would be syllabuses) or a Latin source (in which case, syllabi; the earliest usage is, I think, in Cicero’s letters, and Cicero was a bit notorious for his Grecisms…); the OED prefers “syllabi.”
The Oxford English Dictionary – your choice for friendly, fusty philologies.
The entry in Fowler’s Second, "Latin Plurals," is surprising:
Of course, I only follow Fowler when it suits my purposes. A friend who used to work there told me the usage reference at Alfred A. Knopf is Theodore Bernstein’s Words into Type; Chicago was used as well, but to settle questions of typesetting.
A point of datum, and pointers to perhaps more data.
Chris, I think mfc’s got your answer, and the root of what your Latin scholar’s talking about: the strong possibility that Cicero’s Latin usage was actually borrowed from the Greek. I’d only add that Cicero is perhaps as well-known for his Latin neologisms as he is for his Greek borrowings (if I understand rightly, most of the words we get from him — quality, humanity, moral, among others — are actually his Latin translations of Greek terms for which the Romans had no equivalent), but your Latin scholar’s far better informed than I. Still: Cicero apparently used it in Latin; hence the approval various dictionaries give to the -i ending.
All that notwithstanding, I’d still abide by whatever Cecil might have to say, should he ever choose to enlighten his readers on the issue.
And the rest of y’all are some erudite-ass mothers. I think I musta got my pedant’s badge out of a Cracker Jack box. 🙂
With reference to your declension of Latin nouns, it’s all Greek to me, but the following URL may cast some light on the subject.
http://www.orlapubs.com/AL/L88.html
Fred,
Excellent reference; thank you. But isn’t the pedantry what the geeky glee is all about?
And it mentioned data. Don’t even get me started on the pronunciation of the neuter plural of the participle of “to give” versus the pronunciation of the name of the character played by Brent Spiner on “Star Trek: The Next Generation”.
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