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Saturday, 2002 August 3, 01:12 — language

pseudo erudition only annoys us true erudites

A comment to Vodkapundit says “Lileks . . . must be the only writer in America to know and use the plural hiatii.” Lileks is of course free to invent words if he likes, in which case he’s naturally the only one to know them; but in Latin, there is no word in which singular -us corresponds to plural -ii. hiatus is a u-stem abstract, and its plural is hiatÅ«s (with a long u).

And by the way, the plural of Elvis is Elvides. I have spoken.

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