Word Games

When does a word end in -ous and when does it end in -us? I am not an English major or anything, so I am not going to be technical and drone on about any rules to follow etc. But, I will try to help by pointing out something I was thinking about tonight when I couldn't get to sleep.

Let's take ridiculous, or is it ridiculus?

It is ridiculous.
(I sometimes accidentally write rediculous, but I try to remember the root word is ridicule)

How can we remember this? Well I was going over the English language in my head and I realized something. More often than not, the word will end with -ous. Also, you will notice that the words in the first list that end with -ous are all adjectives while the second list that ends with -us are nouns. If in my sleepiness, I got one incorrect, let me know (it is 4:00 in the morning). I am not sure if that is always the case, but it seems to be more likely the case. I am sure there are exceptions, there always are.

Here are some examples of -ous:

ambitious

anonymous

conscious
contagious

delicious
fabulous
ferocious
gratuitous
horrendous

ludicrous

luxurious
malicious

meticulous

ridiculous

sensuous

serious

tenacious

tenuous

vivacious

voluptuous

Here are some examples of -us:

alumnus

calculus

fungus

sinus

stimulus

syllabus

An interesting thing about this second group is the plural version of some of them:

alumni

calculi

fungi

stimuli

syllabi

I am not sure what the point of this was, but I hope someone found it useful.

*I couldn't sleep until I wrote down all these words that were swirling in my head.*