Does etymology count?
As a prelude to this cartoon I was going to write some interesting facts about abacuses, but got sidetracked.
If, like me, you were fortunate (or misfortunate) enough to have a journalist as a parent you would probably have been subjected to rigorous criticism of everything wot you wrote or spoke. Correct English was thrust down my throat from a very early age, and, of course, I didn’t have the luxury of an internet search engine to confirm or refute the correctness of my grammar and spelling.
When I wrote down the word “abacuses” it didn’t feel right. The plural of abacus is surely abaci as in fungus/fungi and cactus/cacti. My ingrained fear of “getting it wrong” kicked in, and there was no way in the world I could continue without knowing which of the two was correct.
So after a quick surf on the net it would seem that either is acceptable. However, on balance I would come out in favour of abacuses. Etymologically speaking, if the root of the word is Latin you should substitute the “us” for “i” for the plural form, (abacus/abaci). But the word abacus has its roots in Arabic, not Latin, so this rule shouldn’t, or needn’t apply.
Well, I’ve got that off my chest, so here’s the gag, which is about abacuses…………
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