Friday, 13 November 2009

Who wants a chocolate frog?

You can have one if you tell me (truthily) what proper certified biologists do when they want to talk about the plural of "genus". It's "generes" in Latin. I thought that sounded a bit fancy for your garden variety sentence, so I tried typing "genuses", but Mr Microsoft Autopedant told me I was a pustulent hillock upon the dorsal skin of good usage.

Here, by the way, is the context: "Darwin’s sketches of the branching relations between [plural of genus], species, and varieties are, as he knows, foundational to his articulation of how biological difference comes to be in all its plenitude."

N.B. chocolate frog may turn out to be a metaphor for extreme kudos.

N.B.B. Apologies for "comes to be in all its plenitude". Euphony schmeuphony.

UPDATE: I am a Latin fraud. It's actually "genera", not "generes". Good night, then.

UPDATE THE SECOND: Am, like, totally embarrassed by this post, but I'm leaving it up to dispel myths of my omniscience. Ahem.

14 comments:

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

Were I to attempt to eat a chocolate frog here in Adders at this very moment, it would drip straight through my nerveless heat-struck fingers faster than even I could transfer it to my mouth.

WV: cryingi. Ain't it the truth.

Mark Reid said...

I'm not 100% certain but the word that leapt to mind when I read the blank in your sentence was "genera".

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

Yes, I'd go with genera. Meant to say that first time round.

WV: factre. Must be right. I say, your doorbitch is outdoing herself this evening.

Martin Kingsley said...

Aye, a casual scrounge suggests 'genera'.

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

Genera! Genera! That's totally it. I'm just a faux latinist, thinking it was generes. Derr, me. Thanks, Mark.

Pavlov's Cat, I have been watching the 'Laidean weather with complete and utter pity-and-terror. Hope your ice tray is holding up.

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

Well yes, there's a lot of catharis going on around here, I can tell you. Doorbitch says 'playedsy' - it just gets better and better.

Re ice tray, while I am officially on a diet I must say I have been transfixed by a recipe for something called Burnt Brown Sugar Ice Cream. But I am standing firm and not making it.

Jayne said...

I got nothin' but WV is "patin"...obviously Blogger has a slight speech impediment and meant "latin".

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

Burnt Brown Saccharin I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Ice-Cream?

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

Word Verification's getting a bit too clever for its own good, if you ask me.

Mark Reid said...

I guess us mere mortals cannot be geniera like Darwin.

DS said...

Did you go with genera in the end?

Anonymous said...

WV says litria
truly
I just had to mention it.
Tyaakina
(thanks for that PC)

M L Jassy said...

Good to see you are brushing up on your latin studies for upcoming Finnegans Wake Reading Group (perhaps in five to ten years' time, but no matter, we'll be at it.)

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

Yeah, went with 'genera'. It was genera all along. I even knew it was genera. It's just that sometimes my brain plonks itself under a coconut palm and overdoses on pina coladas.