Many 'Latin' words in English have both Latin-style plurals and English-style plurals:
- referendum – referendums, referenda.
- minimum – minimums, minima.
- gymnasium – gymnasiums, gymnasia.
- aquarium – aquariums, aquaria.
- amoeba – amoebas, amoebae.
- antenna – antennas, antennae.
- formula – formulas, formulae.
- index – indexes, indices.
- appendix – appendixes, appendices.
In technical language, generally, Latin-style is the only proper form of Latin plurals.
In all other contexts where both Latin-style and English-style are proper, which style of plural should I use?
Best Answer
In general, you can look to overall usage to get an idea of which to use. Searches of COHA, COCA, and the Google Books Ngram Viewer are great sources of data for that. However, one thing to consider is that for many of these words, I would personally use both of the plurals in different situations. So consider using a context search on COCA for perspective when doing research.
For example, I would speak of indices of economic decline, but of tracking major market indexes. Similarly, array indices but database indexes.
I would use minima in a mathematical context, but I would never speak of needing to carry cash because all the restaurants have $10 minima for using credit cards. I would speak of “$10 minimums”
I would refer to a table of formulae in a math textbook but talk disparagingly of those looking for “magic formulas and shortcuts”.
A doctor who has performed many appendectomies I would say has removed many appendixes, but the last third of my calculus textbook consisted of nothing of appendices containing tables of integrals and values of trigonometric functions.