View Full Version : The plural of gymnasium
Reenk Roink
05-01-2011, 19:19
Long story short, I am emailing a professor and I need to use the plural of gymansium. I have looked this up and apparently both 'gymnasiums' and 'gymnasia' are acceptable in English. But acceptability in English isn't the question, rather, the question is which one is more suited to use. Gymnasiums certainly seems more natural and English, if you get what I mean, but gymnasia is truer to the Latin origin. This choice has massive implications; I could either come off as an ignorant and inarticulate, not worthy of the academy, but, on the other hand, I could come off as a pretentious douchebag. I am of course both, but I'd like to hide these unsavory facts from my professor.
The email is basically done but this issue has been tearing me apart. To add a bit of surreality to the situation, I have decided to democratize the decision on certain internet communities. Well, I only really know of two, the Org and 4chan's /sp/ board, and I'm going with the Org for obvious reasons...
So, based on your votes, I will make my decision. Please vote by Monday evening. :bow:
Oh, but I won't likely be using Gah if it is the top option.
Also, I had this problem with arenas and arenae but I decided to just omit the word altogether in that case... :no:
Gymnasium is Greek in origin. I think going with gymnasia is your best choice.
Reenk Roink
05-01-2011, 19:23
Gymnasium is Greek in origin.
rofl :wall:
Of course, in (transliterated) Greek it would be "gymnasion" but eh. Y'get the idea.
When has anyone ever cared about true English....half of the world speaks mutated versions of English. And the few purists who still hold to British English are often corrected when they add the 'u' in 'honour'.
Over here the people speak 'Hinglish'.
Go with gymnasiums.
Just my 2 cents.
Hosakawa Tito
05-01-2011, 21:05
How do you spell it in text-speak?
Gymnasia sounds like a nicer word to me than gymnasiums, so I'd go with the former.
Hey... how about writing it in a completely different language.. eh... to show how sophisticated you are?
Norwegian : Gymnas (singular), Gymnas (plural) :sneaky:
Tellos Athenaios
05-01-2011, 22:40
@Hosakawa, that would probably be "gym".
Gregoshi
05-01-2011, 22:41
How many gymnasium are you talking about? ~D
Reenk Roink
05-01-2011, 23:18
Hey... how about writing it in a completely different language.. eh... to show how sophisticated you are?
Norwegian : Gymnas (singular), Gymnas (plural) :sneaky:
n0rg135 got it so easy :book:
Who am i?
05-01-2011, 23:21
Hello.
Gyms.
Rhyfelwyr
05-01-2011, 23:53
Gymnasi?
What does the professor teach?
stratigos vasilios
05-02-2011, 08:53
Gymnasiumsiaiae.
Beat me to this.
Couldn't resist to vote Gah!, but I would use gymnasia. It sounds more beautiful than gymnasiums. Gymnasiums sounds... boring :shrug:
Couldn't resist to vote Gah!, but I would use gymnasia. It sounds more beautiful than gymnasiums. Gymnasiums sounds... boring :shrug:
Agreed. It's like a more subtle difference between the words "possum" and "opossum" - the latter sounds far uglier than the former.
Here it's Gymnasium (singular) and Gymnasien (plural).
The only problem being it means something completely different as in it's a form of high-school where you can make your Abitur.
I suppose you're talking about a place that has to do with sports, right?
The Stranger
05-02-2011, 17:40
When has anyone ever cared about true English....half of the world speaks mutated versions of English. And the few purists who still hold to British English are often corrected when they add the 'u' in 'honour'.
Over here the people speak 'Hinglish'.
Go with gymnasiums.
Just my 2 cents.
british language purists are actually undercover french aristocrat nationalists.
a completely inoffensive name
05-03-2011, 10:09
http://youtu.be/R4i8SpNgzA4
https://img69.imageshack.us/img69/9141/27529110739725610882323.jpg
http://youtu.be/R4i8SpNgzA4
Ah, ACIN, I see you are one of those whale-kissing, Dukakis-hugging moon-maidens.
ajaxfetish
05-05-2011, 22:59
Taking a look at the numbers in the Corpus of Contemporary American, gymnasiums gets a total of 121 hits and gymnasia 19. Restricting it to only academic sources, gymnasiums gets 27 and gymnasia 13. You're certainly more likely to find gymnasia in academia than anywhere else, but even in the ivory tower that leaves a 2:1 preference for gymnasiums. It's a word used infrequently enough that I don't feel like the irregular plural has much traction. Gymnasiums sounds natural to me; gymnasia strained. I'd go with good old regularized gymnasiums.
Ajax
p.s. Google n-grams has gymnasia as more common up until about 1912, when it is surpassed by gymnasiums. It has the 2 very close in 2000, though, which doesn't mesh with the COCA results and seems unlikely to me. Not sure what to make of that.
Louis VI the Fat
05-06-2011, 02:00
ERR ON THE SAFE SIDE AND USE GYMNASIAS
According to Ajax, either should be fine.
Gymnasia. Fora. Animalia. Flora. Fauna. Shakira.
All with A
~Jirisys ()
Reenk Roink
05-06-2011, 15:41
I've long since sent the email and I ended up using gymnasiums despite my fellow Orgahs' votes (was going to go with gymnasia but then the counter arguments just became more and more pronounced in my head; also it was a biochemistry professor not a classical studies one so he probably would take gymnasia the wrong way more than the right).
Nice to get some stats on usage that shows gymnasiums is indeed the word of choice in both academic on non academic settings recently though, gives some closure on the matter that I did the right thing. :bow:
The Stranger
05-07-2011, 14:40
I've long since sent the email and I ended up using gymnasiums despite my fellow Orgahs' votes (was going to go with gymnasia but then the counter arguments just became more and more pronounced in my head; also it was a biochemistry professor not a classical studies one so he probably would take gymnasia the wrong way more than the right).
Nice to get some stats on usage that shows gymnasiums is indeed the word of choice in both academic on non academic settings recently though, gives some closure on the matter that I did the right thing. :bow:
blasphemy... and i thought so highly of you!
Philippus Flavius Homovallumus
05-10-2011, 23:56
I've long since sent the email and I ended up using gymnasiums despite my fellow Orgahs' votes (was going to go with gymnasia but then the counter arguments just became more and more pronounced in my head; also it was a biochemistry professor not a classical studies one so he probably would take gymnasia the wrong way more than the right).
Nice to get some stats on usage that shows gymnasiums is indeed the word of choice in both academic on non academic settings recently though, gives some closure on the matter that I did the right thing. :bow:
Well, now you're going to a special kind of hell reserved for people who decline languages incorrectly.
Still, nevermind.
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