I once heard Edward Heath reprimand someone for using referendums, claiming that the plural of referendum was referenda. He must have based this claim on the supposition that there was a Latin second declension neuter noun referendum having referenda as its plural, but there is no such noun. Referendum is the accusative singular of the gerundive of refero. It is accusative because it was used in the expression ad referendum, the preposition ad invariably taking the accusative case. When a Roman general in the field negotiated a treaty it was ad referendum, meaning that its terms were subject to approval by Rome. Referendum became an English noun with the sense we know today, probably through French where it was first used in 1781 to mean ‘demand for consultation’.
The mistaken plural referenda was presumably formed by analogy with words like memoranda and agenda. The difference is that those act as gerundives in English which has no comparable native form, and have their origins in the meaning ‘things requiring to be remembered’ and ‘things requiring to be acted upon’. Conceivably, referenda could mean ‘things requiring to be referred’, but that is not the sense in which it is used. If it were to be so used, we should then need a further plural, referendas, in the way we have to make a second plural agendas from the already plural agenda.
It is perhaps worth adding as a footnote that the unrelated, and quite unnecessary, re is not short for ‘referring to’. Re is the ablative singular of the Latin noun res, The full expression is in re, meaning ‘in the matter (of)’, and perhaps still favoured by lawyers.
A little ignorance is a dangerous thing…
People are very good at jumping to (usually the wrong) conclusions.
I have had many
argumentsdiscussions with people of the word virus.Many will have it that, “because it’s Latin”, the plural must be viri… or is that virii…?
Apart from being sure that it is Latin and must therefore have a Latin plural, they are not quite sure what this should be. They are certain, however, that it cannot be viruses, even if we do say geniuses and not genii.
My preference is for “viruses”, and having looked up virus in the Latin dictionary, I feel quite justified in this.
Barrack room Latinists will ever be with us, I fear, because the less Latin they know, the more convinced they are of the correctness of their mistaken assumptions.
By: SilverTiger on 16/07/2010
at 10:11 am
The English plural of virus is undoubtedly viruses. The OED has no record of anything else.
By: Barrie on 16/07/2010
at 10:26 am
And status? Do we say statuses?
By: Heather Niewadomski on 16/07/2010
at 10:54 am
The plural of status in Latin is status, but pronounced as ‘statoos’. There thus is no etymological justification for making the English plural, on those rare occasions when we might need it, anything other than statuses.
By: Barrie on 17/07/2010
at 10:11 am
Spanish, like other Romance languages, can usually follow Latin easily. Datos and medios (de comunicación) are plural without a doubt though agenda (meaning diary) is singular. The Royal Academy as usual prefers the Hispanicised form referendo to the Latin referéndum but, as in other cases, it is fighting a losing battle. El País prefers referéndum, as does the Spanish Constitution.
There is no doubt that the plural is referendos, whatever the singular form.
In Spanish virus doesn’t change in the plural.
By: Peter Harvey on 16/07/2010
at 10:56 am
I think that your comment re ‘referenda’ is excellent, but I don’t quite follow your objection to ‘re’. Whatever its etymology, it is in widespread, if declining, use, and is a useful shorthand word. One might just as well object to ‘item’.
By: Dai on 11/09/2010
at 7:39 pm
My objection is that it is unnecessary.
By: Barrie on 11/09/2010
at 8:09 pm
Thank you for spelling out the origin of ‘re’. I do think it is useful, for shorthand writing only, and now I know what it means. I thought it meant ‘regarding.’
By: Victoria Mckenzie on 22/10/2010
at 6:13 pm
Thank you for the plural knowledge.
By: Durga Prasad B on 12/04/2011
at 3:00 pm
Until 1973, the word referendum wasn’t heard much in the UK. Then suddenly there was the possibility of two in the near future: on Scottish devolution and EU membership.
As I remember, there was quite a lot of discussion at the time whether to go for referenda, which personally I prefer, or referendums. My impression is that it was the BBC which swayed the argument, settling on referendums, as being more ‘English’. However, four British dictionaries I’ve just consulted allow for both possibilities, unlike my (US) spell checker!
By: Warsaw Will on 02/12/2011
at 6:46 pm