The Globe and Mail is one of Canada's best, most reputable newspapers.
Every year the paper publishes a grammar quiz and the questions are rather difficult to answer.
To see the answers, select the area after the word ANSWER or press "Control A"
Try it:
1 Education curriculums are overhauled every decade.
A) correct
B) curricula
C) curriculae
ANSWER A
2 The southern United Staes is dotted with statutes of the heroes of the Confederacy.
A) correct
B) statues
C) statuettes
ANSWER B
3 ... my numerous sister-in-laws and brother-in-laws...
A) correct
B) sisters-in-law and brothers-in-law
C) sisters' and brothers' in law
ANSWER B
4 Drake, who first payed homage to...
A) correct
B) paid
C) painted
ANSWER B
5 Bracelets and other bobbles...
A) correct
B) bobblae
C) baubles
ANSWER C
I got 2, 3, 4, and 5 correct.
I am prepared to argue about #1. I chose "curricula." Like a number of other such words, you have a choice between one that sounds slightly pedantic and one that sounds slightly ignorant. I feel strongly that "curricula" and "curriculum" are both acceptable--but I personally prefer "curricula" and I am not ready to give it up without sound authority.
Now I am going to check a dictionary.
American Heritage online says "n. pl. cur·ric·u·la (-lə) or cur·ric·u·lums." I feel fully vindicated. According to this dictionary, "curricula" is certainly not wrong, and even indicates that is more common--and they don't give any usage note, so they don't see it as controversial.
OxfordDictionaries online isn't showing anything about the plural. I don't know whether that means that it is formed in the regular way.
The original Globe & Mail article linked by Stephen Ford just presents the answer, with no reference or authority given, so phooey on them.
I tried to do a Google search to see how it's really used, but it's difficult. I couldn't find any good examples of the plural use of "curriculum." It's almost an uncountable noun. The set of all the little departmental curricula in a school is just "the curriculum" of the entire school. Indeed, I learn that there is something called "the Canadian curriculum" which I think must be all of the curricula of all of the schools! Couldn't you write "The educational curriculum is overhauled every decade?"
I think you all did very well... congratulations
When I did the quiz, I didn't know what a bauble was, so I got that one wrong.
Now I know that a bauble is a showy, usually cheap, ornament; a trinket.
But I don't think I'll ever need to use that word again :)
My thanks to all of you who have contributed to this discussion:
<ul class="media-heading list-inline" style=""><li style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">Tahmineh
Alejandra
Antonio
Tereza
Surendra (the re-born :)</li></ul>
Natalia
Stephen
Phillip
</li></ul>
Natalia... You've asked a good question.
You asked if I find the -a variant used more than the -ums spelling and are these two spellings right or wrong?
Oh, Natalia, you're making me work overtime... :)
Dictionary Spellings
I consulted a few dictionaries and they all seem to accept either spelling, i.e., curriculums and curricula.
So, why do we have two spellings?
It appears that the old classic Latin spelling of the plural of curriculum is curricula.
However, nowadays it appears to be more acceptable to move away from the unusual Latin plurals and use the more common English plural spellings, hence curriculums.
Frequency of Use
I was interested to see the frequency of use of the two acceptable plural spellings, so I searched two corpora (corpus is singular and corpora is plural):
The British National Corpus (BYU-BNC) [https://corpus.byu.edu/bnc/]: ; curriculums = 257 and curricula = 10
The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) [https://corpus.byu.edu/coca/]: curriculums = 308 and curricula = 3577
A QUESTION FOR ENGLISH LINGUISTS
These corpora results confuse me.
I would have thought that the British would be more inclined to use the Latin plural spelling but in fact, it appears the Americans use curricula far more frequently than do the Brits.
Am I wrong here?
Have I misinterpreted the corpora results?
