Water + Salt + Energy = Clean!

codesmith.ca writes "CTV News is reporting about a device built at the Russian Institute for Medical Engineering that can convert standard water and salt into an antimicrobial solution. Apparently it's works on almost anything (virii, bacteria, cysts...) and it's safe for human consumption to boot. I can't find a site for the institute, but there are articles around. This one is fairly detailed, but hard to reach. Here's the Google cache. Here's one about a paper shows it's not exactly super-new technology." Any chemist care to comment on what sounds to be too good to be true?

Comments

Re:What the fuck is 'virii' ?

[Warped-Reality]

more than one virus.

Re:What the fuck is 'virii' ?

[limbostar]

And yet language is such that it doesn't matter what OED says. If people say virii is the plural of virus, it is. It's the same with hacker / cracker.

You cannot stop language from evolving.

Re:What the fuck is 'virii' ?

[beanyk]

You cannot stop language from evolving.

No you can't, but that's no reason not to try. I mean, death and is inevitable as well, but there's no reason to hurry it along.

Same thing happens at home (Ireland) with the word referendum. People pluralise it as if it were a neuter 2nd declension noun -- referenda, when in fact it's a gerund (or gerundive, I forget which), not a noun at all, in Latin. But in English it is a noun, and its plural is therefore referendums. Nothing else makes sense.

Right now, virii is wrong. Sure in the future, if enough people make the same mistake, it'll become the right plural, in some sense. But why help it along? As the perl.com link demonstrates, using fake plurals like virii is being pretentious. It *sounds* plausible, but by helping it along, you just spread ignorance.

My point? If in doubt, just use the normal English rules of pluralisation: add an "s".

What the fuck are viruses?

[ajs]

Ok, for those of you who might make the mistake of listening to this guy, pay close attention: english is a living language. If enough people think that the correct plural spelling of virus would be potatoe, then potatoe it is! I think if I wrote viruses, more people would try to correct me than if I wrote viri (virii looks wrong to me), and if my goal is not to have a debate about spelling, I'm going to go for the one that looks right to more people. Same goes for octopi, ain't and eventually, yes, even hax0r will be a valid word in the american dialect of english (and in many other dialects and languages for that matter).

Actually that last one intrigues me a great deal. Words like hax0r, 1337, d00d and other techno-slang are catching on like wildfire. Currently they are only used in limited sub-cultures but certainly some of these words have such a strong and unique connotation that they will leak into common usage. This is a radical shift for english as it adds new characters into to language for the first time in a very long time (mostly characters have just been removed).

Re:What the fuck are viruses?

[ajs]

I take back my comment about "more people would ... correct me...." According to google, there is a landslide of support on the Web for viruses over virii and viri combined. While I've always heared viri in technical conversation, I'll concede to popular usage.

I double-checked by looking for the following strings:

vir*
computer vir*
"computer vir*"

In each case, the viruses spelling was far-and-away the winner.

Since the importance of common usage was my whole point, I have to suggest that people use "viruses".

Re:What the fuck are viruses?

[fireboy1919]

Groovy, man. Rad. Hip. Definitely 86. I'm sure they will. They won't be like the rest of the trends. They're too legit to quit.

Words that catch on like wildfire ALWAYS succeed, except of course, if there are already words to describe the same thing equally well or better which are already commonly used. Forget the connotation.
hax0r has the same connotation as hacker, d00d the same as dude, and l337 the same as elite. The only difference is who will say them.

Eventually, the script-kiddie counter culture will get tired of using those words and get some new ones.

Why do I limit this to script kiddies? Among my actual coder friends I have noticed a distinct trend towards good grammar, and an attempt at proper spelling. I suspect that this is a side-effect of working in necessarily stricter languages than English.

Want an example yourself? Go to a linux-related chatroom and figure out who in the room has the most experience. Then check their grammer. More often than not they use full sentences with punctuation and correct spelling, unlike a lot of other people on IRC.

Re:What the fuck are viruses?

[Saeger]

You're suggesting that I should a spell a word like everyone else... just because most everyone else is doing it that way? Sounds familiar. :)

I'd suggest that unconventional twists of language are a good thing. Gotta keep the mutation rate up d00d.

--

Re:What the fuck are viruses?

[Christopher Thomas]

pay close attention: english is a living language. If enough people think that the correct plural spelling of virus would be potatoe, then potatoe it is!

I'm afraid I'm with Clippy on this one:

Clippy: Is this the same principle of common usage that keeps sending us all the spelling mistakes, and thinks it's ok to stick an apostrophe into any word ending in 's' no matter whether it's a contraction or a plural?

Clippy: Because if so, it can bite my skinny wire ass!

Re:What the fuck are viruses?

[DrPascal]

Unconventional twists are good unless they are blatantly wrong, such as "definately". Every time I see someone spell "definitely" "definately" I want to scream in agony.

Here come the onslaught of people replying to this post spelling it in a very predictable way.

Re:What the fuck are viruses?

[Salis]

Try that the real plural of the word virus is virii and only idiots like you can't remember it. What's the plural of fish, NOT fishes. What's the plural of dwarf, NOT dwarfs.

There's a reason why there's a dictionary. Go look up the word virus in the Oxford English Dictionary. You'll be happily surprised that, somewhere in the world, people actually care about words.

And the people who refer to the plural of virus as viruses in medical journals are often foreign. I don't blame them for knowing the difference, but they're usually smart enough to look up such words in an english dictionary before proclaiming the rest of the english-speaking world idiots...like you have just done.

What are you, 12?

Re:What the fuck are viruses?

[steveg]

It's interesting that you mke such a big deal about dictionaries, yet you have obviously never consulted one. Try looking up virus in 4 or 5 different dictionaries and see if you find any that specify anything other than viruses as the plural of virus.

You might look up dwarf and dwarfs too. Dwarfs has been the traditonal plural for centuries. Dwarves is a very recent usage, mostly due to Tolkien.

Re:What the fuck are viruses?

[Chris Burke]

Sure, sure... Eventually the language will change.

Until then it's still fucking wrong.

Thank you.

P.S. I once called it "virii" too, but someone corrected me and then I stopped. I didn't try to pull this "living language" bullshit. Though in theory you're correct, which just makes it even bigger bullshit. :)

Re:What the fuck is 'virii' ?

[blue trane]

But why help it along?
by helping it along, you just spread ignorance.


Personally it doesn't bother me because I understand both forms. I think the two spellings are what descriptive linguists call "in free variation".

Re:What the fuck is 'virii' ?

[rocjoe71]

The plural of virus is neither viri nor virii ... It is quite simply viruses

I beg your pardon! The plural of virus is _not_ 'viruses'...

...It's Windows.

Re:What the fuck is 'virii' ?

[Salis]

You moron, Virii is the proper plural of virus. You know, the biological virus came before the computer one. Yes, it's true. So buy a dictionary and spare us your inane babble.