The California Department of Business Oversight announced last week that it has experienced a dramatic increase in consumer complaints, calls and inquiries following the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.  According to the Department, consumer complaints increased more than 37% to an average of 588 per month, email inquiries jumped 86% to almost 2,400 per month, and consumer calls climbed 22% to more than 3,100 per month in the four-months from March 1 through the end of June.  

Fraudsters will, of course, try to use just about any current event to snare the unsuspecting.  The California Attorney General has also published information on Corona virus scams. 

Men, the plural of "virus" is not "viri"

"Cactus" and "amicus" are second declension, masculine Latin words.  Consequently, their plural forms in English are "cacti" and "amici".   "Virus" is also a Latin word and it would therefore seem that its English plural form should also be "viri".  The English plural of "virus", however, is "viruses".  It turns out that "virus" is a fairly rare Latin noun that has no plural form.  It means poison or venom.  "Viri" is the plural form of a Latin word for man, "vir".  Another distinction between "vir" and "virus" is that in Latin the "i" is short in the former and long in the latter.  Finally, "vir" is a grammatically masculine noun while "virus" is a grammatically neuter noun.