Post #1685235

Suddenly today I was struck that it's funny we call it a "bus." It's short for "omnibus," which is a Latin word meaning "for all." The "all" is really the conceptually relevant part there, since it's common transportation rather than a personal vehicle, but that's the "omni." The -ibus part was just a suffix indicating the indirect object. It's rather as if we'd started calling them "for-alls," then eventually shortened it to "fors."