Archived viruses, was Re: Reasonable price for a complete SOL-20 system?

From: Sean Conner Sent: Monday, October 24, 2016 2:00 PM Viruses. The Latin word _virus_ means "slime, poison", and is a collective noun, like English _milk_ or _flour_ or _sugar_. It did not form a plural at all. Furthermore, it is a neuter (neither masculine nor feminine) o-stem noun, very very odd because it ends in -us rather than -um in the nominative. -us is overwhelming the marker of a masculine o-stem, or occasionally of a masculine or feminine u-stem (whose plural would be in -us), and very rarely of a feminine o-stem, or often of a neuter s-stem (like _genus_ "kind", whose plural is _genera_ "kinds"). The -i marker of nominative plurals is restricted to those masculine and feminine o-stems; -ii is restricted further, to o-stems in which the stem vowel is preceded by -i-, so _domus, domi_ "house, houses" vs. _genius, genii_ "tutelary spirit(s) attendant on a person from birth", _Julius, Julii_ "a _gens_ (clan) name, members of the Julian _gens_", _Cornelius, Cornelii_, etc. Neuters in all ancient Indo-European languages, such as Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin, end in -a (or a regular development from *-a). Presumably, if one were able to specify a plural in Latin of the word _virus_, it would by rule have to end in -a. But the speakers of Latin did not speak of discrete slimes, it all being one to them, so we will never know. The word _virus_ was used as a synonym for _venom_ as late as the early 20th Century in English, as in Burroughs's description of the deadliness of the _virus_ of Martian serpents (in _The Gods of Mars_), which confused me no end when I was reading the Martian novels for the first time at the age of 14. The modern usage derives from the medical term _filterable virus_, referring to a disease-causing agent which was unresolvable under a microscope but which could be mechanically filtered out of water, unlike a poisonous chemical dissolved in water. The word _filterable_ was dropped at some point in the literature, then electron microscopes came along which *could* resolve viruses, and we come into the modern world. More than you ever wanted to know, I'm sure. Rich Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer Living Computers: Museum + Labs 2245 1st Avenue S Seattle, WA 98134 mailto:RichA at LivingComputers.org http://www.LivingComputers.org/