[hodwik]

Your perscriptivism here seems misguided then, because if virus is a mass word we shouldn't be saying viruses either: just "virus". And anyway, if we absolutely had to express a plurality of virus, it would be "vira".

Anyway, this is hackernews.

For those of us who grew up in internet hacking communities of the early 90's "virii" was the plural form in the lingua franca. As a descriptivist of great habit, I will continue to use that form.

[henrikschroder]

I am actually a descriptivist myself, but the prescriptive approach usually works best when trying to convince people how to write. Apparently not so in this case.

How about this argument then: "virii" is f*ckin ugly? No? Darn. :-)

[henrikschroder]

Sidenote, because I think this is fascinating:

Just because a noun is a mass word in one language, it doesn't mean it has to be in other languages that have borrowed the word.

For example, in my language, "lego" is a mass word, and to make a plural you would have to say something like "pieces of lego", but in English, the plural of "lego" is "legos".