My science teacher says it is all of them (for plural of genus) my dad says genuses, yahoo answers says genuses, i say genii and genuses. Which is it? and why are the others wrong?
2006-10-19 06:59:08 · 7 answers · asked by conƒused-little-man 2 in Education & Reference ➔ Words & Wordplay
Genus becomes genera in the Latin plural (third declension neuter), and is the most commonly accepted plural. Genus has become a common enough word in English to have picked up the Anglicized plural, genuses, so you will see that one occasionally as well. But genii is the plural of genius (second declension masculine), a completely different Latin word. It is never a plural of genus. That is just ignorance on someone's part.
2006-10-20 23:36:01 · answer #1 · answered by Jeannie 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
How about none of the above?
The proper plural is genera.
The Anglicized plural would be genuses, perhaps acceptable in casual conversation, but definitely not in the scientific fields.
Genii is gibberish - totally meaningless with respect to the word genus. It appears that someone is trying to make a pseudo-Latin plural. Many Latin nouns end in "us" and form their plural (at least in nominative case) with an "i", but that would be "geni" - only one "i". Since genus is from Greek anyway, neither genii or geni would be right.
2006-10-19 10:48:26 · answer #2 · answered by dollhaus 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I'm not sure about "genra", that looks more like the plural of "genre" (as in literary genre) to me. The difference between genii and genuses is like octopi and octopuses. The "es" is the anglocised version, the "i" is closer to the latin/greek language the word originally came from.
2006-10-19 13:32:48 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
The plurals are genuses and genera. Genii is plural of genius.
2006-10-19 07:07:07 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Genrally, I dream of Genii. But then,I'm not one of them Genuses. Hope that clears everything up for you.
2006-10-19 07:09:38 · answer #5 · answered by beast 6 · 0⤊ 2⤋
Genii, plural of genius
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/genii
The plural of genus is "genera"
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=genera
2006-10-19 07:17:08 · answer #6 · answered by dontknow 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Most pluralized words just add s or es
but aome words have irregular endings...in this case it is irregular, the correct and most widely accepted form is "genera"
2006-10-19 07:09:09 · answer #7 · answered by aimiejs77 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋