OT: European stock markets fall faster than UK...

[The Natural Philosopher]

Oh dear oh dear.

The wheels are coming off the EU gravy train.

They are losing control of this...

[David Lang]

It's doomed Mr Mainwaring.......

I'll give it 5 years. Countries all over Europe are calling for referendums.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Or even referenda, for those with classical educations ;-)

[Chris Hogg]

Er...no, even with a classical education! Referendum is not a latin noun, let alone a neuter noun, so it does not decline like other neuter nouns, and its plural is not referenda. Referendums is correct.

[The Natural Philosopher]

referanda is also correct. And it is a Latin noun, well a gerund anyway.

[Chris Hogg]

From

The OED says that both plural forms are used in more or less equal measure these days. However, it notes that the form referenda is often deprecated in usage guides (Fowler prefers referendums, for instance).

The word referendum comes from Latin, but it was not a noun in Latin, as it is in English. It is the gerund, or neuter gerundive form of the verb referre, meaning to refer. Referenda is a Latin plural gerundive and would mean, pedantically speaking, 'things to be referred'.

[whisky-dave]

We should throw that foreign language out with the EU. ;-)

Version 1.0 of the wodders emulator:- Flush all the shit were it belongs and where it can't lie it's way out of a wet paper bag.

[Cursitor Doom]

Seems the markets have decided the EU is going to lose more out of this than the UK. After the dust settled, the FTSE100 lost less than any other major market apart from the DJ in the US. In fact it now stands about where it was last week!

[bert]

Radio Finland does all its overseas broadcasts in Latin. They reckon there are more listeners out there who understand Latin than Finnish.

[Jack Samuel]

That's a lie.

Pity there are just a few more who understand english.