Calling All Grammarians! The Latin Plural in English?

[AGBF]

This very video addresses the issue!

http://www.merriam-webster.com/video/0015-octopus.htm?&t=1318272407

Thanks for posting that, mogster. I liked the video because I want to argue with it!!! I don't think that the "editor" who was on camera and whoever wrote that little speech for her is the ultimate authority on words and grammar in the world (although the video clip makes it sound as if she is supposed to be).

She says her lines so smugly, telling us that the people in the English movement to place Latin endings on words had, "forgotten" that when a foreign word entered the English language it became English and, thus, did not need to be ended with a Latin or Greek ending. I find that disingenuous. The grammarians in that movement certainly did not "forget" that foreign words became English; they viewed those once-foreign words differently from the way the editor viwed them.

You advanced our discussion, however! Thank you.

Deb/AGBF