language lessons

In a comment on my previous post, moon babies, lumberjack noted that I used the incorrect form of the plural of syllabus. In academia, he says, we hand out syllabi, not syllabuses. And this is true. My professor asked me today, "Where did you put the remaining syllabi?" However, my computer and its little red "incorrect spelling" underline, would like to differ with academia. Let's see what the internet says!

First, we go to the source - dictionaries. The following all list that both forms are acceptable.
dictionary.com
American Heritage Dictionary
Merriam-Webster

Second, we consult Wikipedia, which has the answer to all things. It confirms my suspicions that syllabus is not necessarily a Latin based word, which means the -i plural ending is not necessarily the correct one, although it has come to be used as if it is such.

"The common plural form syllabi is sometimes considered a hypercorrection, as we do not know that syllabus is a second-declension Latin noun, simply because there are not enough classical uses of the term to definitively discern its declension. If, as the vast majority of Latin nouns ending in "-us", "syllabus" belongs to the second-declension, the plural would be syllabi; if fourth, the plural would again be syllabus. For this reason, syllabi, syllabus, and syllabuses are all commonly accepted. However, the word syllabus originally comes from a mis-transliteration by Cicero, who mis-copied the word σιττύβας (accusative plural of σιττύβα, meaning label or title page) as syllabos, making any Latin-ized plural form technically incorrect."

Thirdly, we inquire of google what other words have plural endings often mistaken for Latin, or Greek, or English forms. Here are the two most frequent examples, both, interestingly, involving animals.

- The plural of octopus (Greek) is technically octopodes, but we should use octopuses rather than the Latin form octopi.
- Hippopotamus is also of Greek origin and so technically should not have an -i plural ending.

Lastly, we defer to people much wiser to continue the debate for us.
Ask Oxford
The Straight Dope (this one is very comprehensive)

As a consequence of this small bit of research, I have decided that I can and will reserve the right to use syllabuses in my class; freshmen won't know the difference, anyway.