Exist genuses?

[Kenelm Philip]

        'Genuses' is merely the latest example of an ongoing trend in the
English language, which is to anglicize all foreign inflections. Back in
the 1960s, the Journal of Geophysical Research announced a new editorial
policy: 'strata' and 'spectra' were to be replaced by 'stratums' and
'spectrums'. This does sound like a barbarism to anyone accustomed to
using the foreign-language forms--but we all do it somewhere. How many of
you refer to more than one 'bus' as 'bi'? How many use the original
plural of 'insignia'? Do all of you _never_ use 'data' as a singular
noun? Have you ever given someone a 'kudo'?

        Basically, anyone who is less careful about foreign inflections
than you are is a barbarian--while anyone who is _more_ careful than you
is a pedant...  (And I would never say 'genuses'  :-)  )

                                                        Ken Philip
fnkwp at uaf.edu