Forums or fora?

r3nu4l

Now, I know that some people say both are correct but I prefer fora. The problem is that most times I say "fora" I'm asked "WTF???!!!".

I have recently found myself using "forums" on occassion in an effort to reach the masses. So am I dumbing down or am I technically correct in using "forums".

I'm in needage of helpage on this oneage!

Mr Magnolia

I use 'forums' for fear of mocking. If I'm told 'fora' is fine then 'fora' it will be.

punka

"Fora" is technically correct, but since "forums" so commonly you're probably best sticking with that. I consulted Fowler's, the bible on such things, and he says:

All that can safely be said is that there is a tendency to abandon the Latin plurals, & that when one is really in doubt which to use the English form should be given the preference.

Pherekydes

Go with the latin plurals. The masses are beneath you. They should be made to understand this.

I have recently seen indexes, matrixes and radiuses. I loathe them.

r3nu4l

^^ I like your thinking SlowCoach!

I have found myself thinking about this recently in terms of job interviews. A colleague of mine who recently joined our firm said that he had used a latin plural in an interview and had been "corrected" by the interviewer.

That's the danger you face when in these situations, the person interviewing you thinks you are wrong and therefore makes an incorrect judgement about you! :eek:

nuac

Pherekydes wrote: »

Go with the latin plurals. The masses are beneath you. They should be made to understand this.

I have recently seen indexes, matrixes and radiuses. I loathe them.

a agree with Pherekydes. English is being dumbed down too much already.

Boulevardier

Some battles are not winnable. Forums/fora is one such, and referendums/referenda is another.

Janey_Mac

Those Latin words were borrowed into English a long long time ago. I think it really should be acceptable by now to treat them the same as the natives (and the myriad other borrowings gone native).

I mean, do you worry about the correct Norse plural for skirt? Or the correct Czech plural for robot? Or the Hindi plural for bungalow? No, you use your English pluralisation rule.

These words (referendum, forum etc.) have been going native for a long time now, and it tends to be academically-inclined pedants (and I totally include myself there) who are holding onto the original plurals (or their approximation of what the original plurals might have been only they don't actually know any Latin.)

Of course, the problem is what your listeners will think, and that one will have to be a judgement call on your part!

Mr. Presentable

Fora is correct through noble lineage. Forums is correct through common usage. I prefer nobility.

Janey_Mac

nuac wrote: »

a agree with Pherekydes. English is being dumbed down too much already.

Those aren't dumbings-down! They're making Latin words conform to English pluralisation rules. Which makes sense since we speak English and very very few people encounter a Latin class in their lives these days.

Look at all the vocabulary we have that's borrowed that has our rules applied to it! Do you think using the plural "bungalows" instead of whatever the Hindi should be is dumbing down? Do you order "two espressi" from your favourite coffee vendor, because "espressos" is dumbing down?

Janey_Mac

Mr. Presentable wrote: »

Fora is correct through noble lineage. Forums is correct through common usage. I prefer nobility.

Why do you use the word noble?

Mr. Presentable

Janey_Mac wrote: »

Why do you use the word noble?

I LIKE it :pac:

Janey_Mac

Disclaimer: I love indices, matrices, fora, referenda and (god help me) octopodes.

I love words that are out of the ordinary, I love working out the rules that they're abiding by.

I just don't think I'm right. (I do think I'm interesting in a very nerdy way though.)

Janey_Mac

Mr. Presentable wrote: »

I LIKE it :pac:

That is the best reason in the world. I salute you, noble Mr. Presentable!

spacetweek

When a language borrows a foreign word the word goes through a period of naturalisation. This can take a long or short time depending on how different the two languages are and how tolerant the new language is of non-standard words.

The word starts off as a conscious foreign borrowing, then later becomes a normal, but noticeably foreign word, before finally becoming accepted as a local term.

In Japanese, for example, an English word is immediately respelled to match Japanese pronunciation rules. French leaves English words alone for longer before finally (and inconsistently) making changes to them.
English, however, rarely changes foreign borrowings to force them to match English spelling an pronunciation rules, and only very slowly forces them to comply with our grammar.
"Czech", for example, is the only word in English spelled with a cz and there is no sign of this changing. French spells this word "Tchec".

Note that naturalisation is not dumbing-down; it is a perfectly normal development observable in all languages.

In the case of Latin words like forum, it has a long history in English. It is at this stage an English word, not Latin. Fora is its original plural in its source language, but this is only really of interest to linguists. Forums is the correct plural to use. (Note that "Octopi" is a spurious plural for the word octopus; this word is Greek, not Latin, so its correct original plural is octopodes, and its correct plural in English is octopuses.)

Note that the plural form which is used more often might not necessarily be the correct one.

English is very laissez-faire in this respect, too much so in my opinion. We don't enforce our own rules often enough and even when we do it is in a lackadaisical manner. For example, indexes and indices are both used often - we should just be standardising on one.

The poster that noted the unpleasant plurals radiuses, indexes and matrixes is due to a particular problem with euphony here - these words all end in s (x is just "ks" written with a special letter) and adding "-es" to such words results in clunky pronunciations.

Janey_Mac wrote: »

Disclaimer: I love indices, matrices, fora, referenda and (god help me) octopodes.

I love words that are out of the ordinary, I love working out the rules that they're abiding by.

That's fine - so they are of interest to you because you're interested in linguistics (I assume). Does that mean they should be officially spelled that way too? Just so linguists can have something to discuss? Surely not! Languages are simply a vehicle for expressing thoughts. Their grammar and spelling is a functional, not artistic, part of that system.

Ideally the only acceptable plural of forum would be forums and a dictionary would state "Original Latin plural 'fora' ". This way interested parties could find out the word's history but regular people wouldn't need to know. English is fast becoming the world's lingua franca and it is out of our hands now. We need the lingua franca to be better structured.

Janey_Mac

Sorry for snipping so much- excellent description of naturalisation!

spacetweek wrote: »

That's fine - so they are of interest to you because you're interested in linguistics (I assume). Does that mean they should be officially spelled that way too? Just so linguists can have something to discuss? Surely not! Languages are simply a vehicle for expressing thoughts. Their grammar and spelling is a functional, not artistic, part of that system.

Ideally the only acceptable plural of forum would be forums and a dictionary would state "Original Latin plural 'fora' ". This way interested parties could find out the word's history but regular people wouldn't need to know. English is fast becoming the world's lingua franca and it is out of our hands now. We need the lingua franca to be better structured.

I never said they should be spelled that way. I said I LIKED them, but that didn't mean they were right. In my earlier posts I said that common usage had made the standard English pural the acceptable plural form in almost all cases of borrowed words. I pointed out that foreign plurals are something I find interesting solely to show that just because a person has philological and pedantic tendancies and knows about the foreign language plurals and likes them, doesn't mean their English usage is more correct.

As for your desire for English to be better structured, and to have rules to remove all ambiguity regarding plurals (and probably all the other ambiguities too) I think the language has been doing just fine with ambiguity for a good long time now, and will continue to do so. Languages do not become the world's lingua franca because of how wonderfully systematic, unambiguous and regular they are, and if English continues to maintain the requirements for a lingua franca (which are largely political, social and economic rather than linguistic) then a lingua franca it will remain.

nuac

While we are at it, could we restore "decimate" to it's original meaning - the execution of one in ten of an underperforming Roman Legion.

Boulevardier

I cant stand the word fora. It sounds so schoolmasterish.

spacetweek

nuac wrote: »

While we are at it, could we restore "decimate" to it's original meaning - the execution of one in ten of an underperforming Roman Legion.

I hate the way everybody misuses this word! Decimate does not mean to reduce to one tenth the size (90% reduction) - it means to reduce by a tenth (10% reduction.)
But you hear stuff like "The coast of Japan was decimated by the tsunami and earthquake" and in this context they mean that nearly every building was flattened.

Janey_Mac

spacetweek wrote: »

I hate the way everybody misuses this word! Decimate does not mean to reduce to one tenth the size (90% reduction) - it means to reduce by a tenth (10% reduction.)
But you hear stuff like "The coast of Japan was decimated by the tsunami and earthquake" and in this context they mean that nearly every building was flattened.

But if *everybody* misuses it, is it misuse? Or is it the new meaning of the word?
I mean, everybody goes around saying "silly" like it means stupid or ridiculous, instead of holy, but that doesn't bother anyone any more.

miamee

Janey_Mac wrote: »

But if *everybody* misuses it, is it misuse? Or is it the new meaning of the word?
I mean, everybody goes around saying "silly" like it means stupid or ridiculous, instead of holy, but that doesn't bother anyone any more.

Eventually whatever meaning becomes commonly accepted *is* the meaning of a word I would have thought, regardless of origins.

Janey_Mac

miamee wrote: »

Eventually whatever meaning becomes commonly accepted *is* the meaning of a word I would have thought, regardless of origins.

Exactly.

r3nu4l

miamee wrote: »

Eventually whatever meaning becomes commonly accepted *is* the meaning of a word I would have thought, regardless of origins.

Indeed. Gay used to mean happy, now it means homosexual and it may change again to refer to an item or person as ridiculous or stupid, e.g. 'That chair is gay'. It is certainly attaining that meaning now in certain demographic subcultures but who is to say it won't develop further?

bonzodog2

There is a shopping centre in Galway with some display stands in the aisles (?? the bits that aren't shops), with signs reading "Please do not sit on the podiums". I am sometimes tempted to correct it to podia.

Jezek

bonzodog2 wrote: »

There is a shopping centre in Galway with some display stands in the aisles (?? the bits that aren't shops), with signs reading "Please do not sit on the podiums". I am sometimes tempted to correct it to podia.

Not correct it, but change it. It's correct already.

nuac

Jezek wrote: »

Not correct it, but change it. It's correct already.

Surely "podia" is the correct plural?

nuac

1. While we are at it, could we drop "referendums" in favour of "referenda"?

2. Sad to see only about 100 took Latin for this year's Leaving Cert

3, Standards of English amongst journalists have declined ( oops nearly typed "decimated" there )

Eeden

Here's an interesting and balanced view:

Forums-forum-fora

Jezek

nuac wrote: »

Surely "podia" is the correct plural?

one of them