Kettering Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\nHere<\/p>\n
is a completely unrelated and pedantic issue, but I have to get it off my chest.<\/p>\n
There is (or should be) no such word as "syllabi." <\/b>"Syllabus"<\/p>\n
is a fourth declension Latin noun, so its plural is not "syllabi" but<\/p>\n
"syllabûs" (pronounced "syllaboos"). Since handing out<\/p>\n
the "syllaboos" on the first day of class would make anyone look like<\/p>\n
the world’s most extreme nerd, I use "syllabuses"—perfectly good<\/p>\n
English.<\/p>\n
For exactly the same reason, there are no "octopi." "Agendae"<\/p>\n
is another Latin-sounding word that isn’t grammatically valid. The word "agenda"<\/p>\n
is already plural, meaning "the things that need to be done." If we<\/p>\n
want to make it plural, then "agendas" will do. I haven’t heard "agendae"<\/p>\n
much, but Google finds 2,760 uses of it.<\/p>\n
While we’re at it, "hoi<\/p>\n
polloi<\/i>" means "the people," so "the hoi polloi<\/i>"<\/p>\n
means "the the people." Which is kind of like saying "the La Brea<\/p>\n
tar pits" (literally translated as "the The Tar tar pits.")<\/p>\n
There,<\/p>\n
I’ve said my piece.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m en route to Indianapolis for the summer retreat of the Kettering Foundation. Here is a completely unrelated and pedantic issue, but I have to get it off my chest. There is (or should be) no such word as "syllabi." "Syllabus" is a fourth declension Latin noun, so its plural is not "syllabi" but "syllabûs" […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4248\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}