Plural of Premium

twignme · 24-03-2018 08:50AM #1

Is it ‘premiums’ or ‘premia’ ?

I use the word frequently in work correspondence and believe that ‘premiums’ is the correct form, however a colleague disagrees. Or are both equally acceptable?

New Home · 24-03-2018 09:19AM

I think the correct plural of "premium", based on its Latin origin, is "premia", but just like for "forum, "millennium" and "aquarium", the plural with "s" is also used and accepted.

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/spelling/plurals

hullaballoo · 24-03-2018 09:53AM

It would be very weird if we had to adopt the plurals of the originating language for all of our borrowed words.

New Home · 24-03-2018 09:57AM

At least we'd be rid of "paninis" and "cappucinos".

twignme · 24-03-2018 03:56PM

New Home wrote: »

I think the correct plural of "premium", based on its Latin origin, is "premia", but just like for "forum, "millennium" and "aquarium", the plural with "s" is also used and accepted.

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/spelling/plurals

Thanks for the reference, I had seen some others with similar information. The problem is, the more you search, the more you find an equal distribution of opinion!
Some time ago, when discussing the same issue with the word 'referendum', I had discovered a rule that said if it is the same referendum question carried out multiple times, that would be referendums, and if it was different referendum questions carried out at the same time, it would be referenda. or something like that anyway

Permabear · 25-03-2018 11:07AM

This post has been deleted.

looksee · 25-03-2018 11:38AM

I would agree about premiums being the more usual and acceptable form, premia is a bit, as Permabear says, pretentious sounding.

Plural of Premium

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