Exist genuses?

[Robin Leech]

Barry,
If'n the author didn't know no gooder, and the editor didn't know no gooder
neither, then the barbarism exists.  Obviously, the author and editor are
NOT literary genera (er, ahem, geniuses).
Robin Leech

----- Original Message -----
From: Barry Roth <barryr at UCMP1.BERKELEY.EDU>
To: <TAXACOM at USOBI.ORG>
Sent: Sunday, November 14, 1999 6:13 PM
Subject: Exist genuses?


> I have just finished reading Nabokov's Blues: the Scientific Odyssey of a
> Literary Genius" by Kurt Johnson and Steve Coates (1999, Zoland Books).
> The title refers to the fact that the novelist Vladimir Nabokov was a
> taxonomic lepidopterist ("blues" referring to the category of small
> butterflies).  I won't review the book here, but one use of the English
> language brought me up short:  throughout the book, the word "genus" is
> pluralized as "genuses."
>
> I asked a friend of mine, a professional editor, and he referred to it as
> "a barbarism."  I have never encountered "genuses" anywhere else, but
maybe
> I'm missing a trend.  Anybody?
>
> Barry Roth
>