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Modern Engineering Thermodynamics

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Appendix B 791<br />

Table B.4 Plural Endings<br />

Singular Ending Plural Ending Example<br />

-um -a datum, data<br />

-a -ae formula, formulae<br />

-on -a phenomenon, phenomena<br />

-ix -ices matrix, matrices<br />

Table B.5 Numbers<br />

Greek Number Latin Number English Meaning Example<br />

mon/o uni one or single monoplane, unicycle<br />

di bi two or double disulfate, bicycle<br />

tri, tripl/i tri three or triple triplicate, tripod<br />

tetr/a quadr/a four or fourfold tetrahedron, quadrangle<br />

pent/a quinqu/e five pentagon, quinquevalent<br />

hex/a sex/a six, sixth hexadecimal, sexagenarian<br />

hept/a sept/a seven, seventh heptagon, septet<br />

oct/a oct/a eight, eighth octane<br />

enne/a non/i nine or ninth ennead, nonillion<br />

dec/i dec/i ten or tenth decimal<br />

kil/o mille one thousand kilometer<br />

mill/i one thousandth millimeter<br />

poly mult/i many polytropic, multistage<br />

hemi semi half hemisphere, semicircle<br />

In English, the plural of a word is usually formed by adding s to the end of the word. However, in many Greek<br />

and Latin technical terms, we retain all of their original spelling, including their plural ending. Table B.4 list<br />

illustrates the proper plural ending for these words.<br />

The first ending in the list is particularly important because it occurs in so many common technical terms. Other<br />

examples are continuum, continua; medium, media; symposium, symposia; colloquium, colloquia; quantum,<br />

quanta; and so forth. Thus, in technical writing, we should not refer to a singular data point, but rather to a singular<br />

datum point, or to a set of data points.<br />

Occasionally, different Greek and Latin words mean the same thing, and this can be confusing when both are<br />

used in the literature. This occurs, for example, in the names of numbers. Table B.5 illustrates this problem.<br />

Thus, we begin to see the structure of thermodynamic terms such as energy (en meaning “in” plus ergon meaning<br />

“work”), adiabatic (a meaning “without” plus dia meaning “through” plus bainein meaning “to go”), aergonic<br />

(a meaning “without” plus ergon meaning “work”), entropy (en meaning “in” plus trope meaning “turning”),<br />

enthalpy (en meaning “in” plus thalpos meaning “warmth”), isochoric, isothermal, isenthalpic, polytropic, and so<br />

forth. If you understand the etymology of a word, it will cease to be a mysterious sound without connotation or<br />

meaning.

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