I am a linguist. That’s not just something I say to get people to believe me when I try to pass off ‘fotarb’ as a real word in Scrabble, although I have done that. Being a linguist is also a opportunity to help.
So in the interest of providing a community service — a bit of pro bono if you will — here’s a question from comments.
in english, what is the plural of Jesus, ie if there is a group of men called Jesus, what do we call them?
Ah, yes. I first came across this conundrum when Youngest Boy gifted me half a walnut shell with two wax figurines inside.
“That’s nice,” I said. “What is it?”
“It’s the two Baby Jesuses,” he said.
“I didn’t know there were two of them,” I said.
“Well, there were,” he said. “They were separated at birth, and they had to fight each other.”
“Did they work it out eventually?”
“Yes. They decided to team up to fight crime.”
“That’s good,” I said. “And along the way, they learned a little something about… the power of friendship.”
“Yep,” he said.
Well, anonymous, if that is your real name, there are two approaches.
Approach 1: Find out where the name comes from, and apply the rule appropriate to that language of origin.
This is the approach favoured by annoying people who insist that the plural of ‘octopus’ should be ‘octopodes’ and not ‘octopi’ because ‘octopus’ comes from Greek and not Latin. Avoid them.
But if we took that approach, we’d have to track the name back to Hebrew. And we’d find something like this:
The name Jesus is an anglicized form of the Latin Iesus, which itself is derived from the Greek name Iesous. Iesous was the Greek transliteration of the Aramaic name Yeshua, which itself was the later Aramaic form of the Hebrew name Yehoshua.
Got all that? So, most recently, Latin.
You may know that Latin has five nasty declensions — different categories that have endings and you have to memorise them all. Life is somewhat easier if you know that ‘Jesus’ is a fourth declension noun, and is pluralised thus: One Jesus, two Jesus. Wasn’t that simple?
But the second approach is: screw it, just pluralise it like English. One Jesus, two Jesuses. Like a little black dress, it’s always appropriate when you’re dealing with borrowed Latin words.
And as a parting thought: if you’re worried about doing the wrong thing, just remember that language is what you do. Any linguist worth his or her salt doesn’t care what you should do. Just talk. We’ll be listening and writing it down. Not in a creepy way.
13 June 2006 at 3:58 pm
Whaaahaaahaaahhaaaa!!!!!!
I’m doubled over laughing.
13 June 2006 at 4:15 pm
ok, pro bono, new question.
I wish I were a pirate.
Vs.
I wish I was a pirate.
It sure sounds like the second is wrong but I know its by far the more common. Case of might makes right?
13 June 2006 at 4:20 pm
Give me a minute on that one.
That’s a metaphorical minute.
15 June 2006 at 2:58 am
longest metaphorical minute ever…
15 June 2006 at 10:00 pm
if there is a group of men called Jesus, what do we call them?
Usually we would call them the megalomaniacs group on the third floor of the east wing at the hospital.
15 June 2006 at 11:49 pm
Or perhaps we could call them ‘hispanohablantes’.
16 June 2006 at 3:25 pm
por supuesto que si. Pero en verdad cuantos veces has visto un grupo de hombres latinos queines se llamen Jesus total%?
16 June 2006 at 4:28 pm
No es muy frecuente, pero a veces sí ocurre.
11 July 2006 at 3:32 am
might I suggest ‘Jesii’?
11 July 2006 at 12:11 pm
“Jesuits”.