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I'm over 150 e-mails behind, having slept a whole nine hours and then taken
Holly for x-rays (teeth) and shopping (gratuitous), and looked at private mail
first. Here's something from a friend of mine in Sweden. It's a link to a
site answering a question about the plural of "penis." Besides being very
funny, it's got useful, good stuff. A couple of quotes, and the URL below:


-=-Penis is a third declension noun, not second declension. These nouns often
end in -is in the singular and -es in the plural. The English style -ises is
sometimes preferred. Hence, we have penises (half of us do, anyway), and
mantises and pelvises, but only more rarely do you see penes, mantes, and pelves,
though they are not incorrect. In many cases, only the Latin form is
acceptable: We have testes (some more than others) and crises and psychoses, but never
testises, crisises, or pyschosises. -=-

-=-Some English -us nouns were borrowed from other parts of speech in Latin
or from other forms (cases) of the noun than the usual nominative. Most of us
don't get boni or ride bi (but I'm not judgmental if you do). We get bonuses
and ride buses.-=-

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mplurals.html