What is the plural of "Stadium"?

Question

Time to resurrect a thorny old problem which ran for several months in the Times letters columns a few years ago.

Just to let you know that the cognoscenti all rejected stadia

STADIA n. a unit of distance

see the funny thing is that it was a classical scholar that said that stadia is not the plural of stadium, but that it is an exception to the rule and the plural is stadium......as i said the debate in the Times, raged on for several months with no real consensus being reached except that stadia was NOT correct even though most dictionaries list it. Apparently it is almost impossible to find it used as such in a classical text


Can anyone show me an example from Classical literature of Stadia being used as the nom.pl. of stadium?

To answer one of the answers

How could Data be anything other than plural.......if i go and collect some numberS these are data!

Answer 1

Stadia
measure of length about 202 yards. (Greek ant.)
modern athletic or sports ground.
stage or period of disease. (med.)

Answer 2

The Oxford English dictionary has:

Stadium n (pl. stadiums or stadia) 1 an athletic or sports ground with tiers or seats for spectators 2 (pl. stadia) an ancient Roman or Greek measure of length, about 185 meters.

So in answer Stadia is both a measure of distance and the plural of stadium. However if this is too confusing you can just use stadiums

Answer 3

The Oxford English Dictionary entry posted in an earlier answer contains a clue.

Yes there are TWO possible plural forms -- but note that there are also two distinct meanings of "stadium"

If you're using the word with the SECOND listing meaning (as a distance), the ONLY proper plural form is "stadia", as the parenthetical note in the dictionary entry is "stadia"

If you are referring to an arena, you will FIND people who still use "stadia", but in most circles that is considered awkward or pretentious. Better to go with "stadiums".

______________________

Thoughts on the 'larger question' -

I believe the practice of forming MOST plurals of ENGLISH words borrowed from Latin on the common "English pattern" is understandable and practical (not to mention inevitable!) Consider that we have a relatively small set of Latin-based English words that retain their Latin based endings AT ALL. (We could decide to plant "gerania" and visit "aquaria"... but why??!) Besides that we no longer make ANY of the Latin case ending distinctions. Why would we expect people to learn Latin plural forms for all of these?

Yes, there are some special cases, but the largest number of these are in specialized use (as in math and sciences), not in "everyday" words. And many of the COMMON cases have developed in specialized ways... which is part of the reason we may have TWO plural forms used for different meanings of a word (as with stadia, also "media"/"mediums").

Also note how, because of their oddness --not 'seeming' like regular plurals to English speakers-- Latin plural forms may note even end up functioning as ordinary plurals. Hence the silly debates about "data" and "media" (which now mostly function as COLLECTIVES), whether they can take singular verb forms, etc.

Answer 4

'Stadia' is as pretentious as insisting that the word 'data' is plural and correcting every time it is used as a singular... The worst by far is the use of 'Fora' as a plural of 'forums'. Stadia iscertainly the correct plural in Latin from whence the word comes. However that language has been dead a good few years now.

Answer 5

Stadia is traditionally the corect answer but stadiums is now an accepted usage in most English dictionaries.

Answer 6

The dictionary I looked in gave two alternatives for the plural of STADIUM.

Despite your note, one of them was STADIA, the other was STADIUMS.

Answer 7

Stadiums

Answer 8

Stadiums and Stadia are fine.

Answer 9

stadium Show phonetics
noun [C] plural stadiums or stadia
a large enclosed area of land with rows of seats around the sides and often with no roof which is used for sports events and musical performances:
Thousands of football fans packed into the stadium to watch the match

Answer 10

Stadia..

Answer 11

stadiums. ive never heard of stadia