WEEKEND GETAWAY

The CACTUSES or CACTI Dilemma Resolved along the way by ROBERT J. EARLY

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE HAS MORE THAN 500,000 words, and for the past year the poor old editor has been discombobulated by just one - the plural of cactus. Should it be cacti, the traditional usage, or cactuses, a version that has been finding its way into more and more dictionaries these days? In an attempt to become a smidgen more modern, we adopted about a year ago the use of the word cactuses instead of cacti for the plural of cactus. Well, our readers reacted as if we had poured salt in their coffee. A furor broke out. Letter-writing campaigns began. Even the local newspaper took notice twice. "Why must you degrade a first-class magazine with thirdor fourth-class word usage?" wrote reader Clinton W. Luedike of Tucson. "Use cacti or I will cancel my subscription."

"Please help fight idiocy, laziness and illiteracy by using the correct plural of cactus cacti," said Norma Hawthorne of Phoenix. "I have been taking Arizona Highways since the 1940s and have saved them all," wrote James M. Hagen of Payson. "Every time I read the word cactuses I have the urge to barf, choke, throw up. It sounds very much like a word some New York city dude might have concocted." "TV and movies dumb-down our language," said Janey Callahan-chin of Rio Vista, California. "The only hope for the use of correct English is found in what we read." But J.A. Wethmeller of Sun City West had another view. "My dictionary says both spellings are correct. I bought this edition when I found that my dictionary was 50 years old. Tell your readers to get up to date."

Wrote Dan Young of Tucson: "Does Ringling Brothers stage circuses or circi? Should the nation's colleges become known as campi, or a group of walruses be called walri? I don't think so. "For the sake of consistency, let's call our prickly pears, barrels and such what they really are cactuses."

The poor old editor was flummoxed. What to do? So he decided to conduct a survey on our Web site and through the mail to let the readers decide the issue. And they certainly did. By a 4 to 1 margin, they picked cacti as the preferred form. And that is what we'll use. Here is what some of the readers had to say: "I've been pondering your cactuses/cacti dilemma for all of five minutes," wrote Tom Case of Surprise. "I remembered my company at Christmastime, when we gave "boni" to everybody. And I remember spring Back East when my mother would be so pleased to see the "croci" coming up in her garden." William B. Mahaffey of Upper Sandusky, Ohio, said: "Each time I see that offensive word 'cactuses' in print, I cringe and slam the magazine shut. "Each time I see a response about it in 'Letters,' I vow to write, but haven't to date. When you stated in the June 2000 issue that you chose the spelling 'cactuses' to 'keep up with the times,' that was the last straw."

"I am not especially a traditionalist. I am one who is appalled by how our English language is being abused, especially in the media. "The use of cacti isn't a matter of being traditional. It's a matter of being correct! Following the gradual change of languages over the centuries is fascinating. However, editors don't have the authority to accelerate the deterioration of the English language."

"If we give in on cacti, do we now say alumnuses instead of alumni? Spaghetti is the plural of spaghetto. Would you ask us to say spaghettoes and meatballs?"

Burt Schindler of Bella Vista, Arkansas proposed this solution: "As lifelong Illinoisans with a scant knowledge of Western flora, we took our two young 'uns out West to larn thar ways."

"While there our youngest, struggling to handle new terminology, came up with 'cactipuss' for the sticky things. It was a small step to 'cactipusses' for a bunch of the things. And 'cactikitties' for the little ones just starting to grow."

Mike Manning of Kingman had a remarkably different view. "Enough about cacti or cactuses," he wrote, "more than enough about time-exposure versus regular photography of water. "A true problem faces Arizona Highways Gene Perret needs a nickname ("Wit Stop, Hand-me-down Nicknames ," August '00)!"

"There is a certain amount of pride that goes with earning and hearing your nickname. No man should be deprived of a nickname. It is time for the readers to quit picking on the poor old editor and rally to a true cause."

There's just no end to the things the poor old editor must worry about. All

adventure WINDOW MOUNTAIN and a Children's Shrine Punctuate a 50-mile Drive Through the Stark Land of the O'ODHAM People

I AM IN THE GREAT BROWN PALM OF THE Sonoran Desert, which is home to the Tohono O'odham Indians. Over the years, I've crisscrossed the O'odhams' 2.8 million-acre reservation. Today I drive a paved loop that begins and ends at the Gu Achi Trading Post at Quijotoa. Along the way, I'm keeping an eye out for one of the area's most prominent landmarks, a natural window carved by wind and rain on Window Mountain.

I visit during what the O'odham call the yellow month - April, the time when brightyellow flowers blossom on the paloverde trees. Soon it will be too hot for me in this desert spot. The best times to be here are on either side of full summer.

The trading post is roughly 80 miles west of Tucson on State Route 86. Most people drive this road headed for Puerto Penasco, a beach town in Mexico. Rarely does anyone leave the main road to explore the obscure routes that comprise the lifeline of the reservation villages.

Frequented by both tourists and the local Indians, Gu Achi Trading Post sells everything from snacks and curios to yucca strips used in basketweaving. The O'odhams are known for their artistic baskets, and I see many for sale at the trading post. The best baskets sell for $200 to $300, and no doubt are worth every penny. But I get nervous when I see too many zeroes, so I head for the door.

As I leave the trading post, I drive north on Indian Route 15 toward the feature in the landscape that gave the trading post its name. In the Piman language spoken by the O'odhams, Gu Achi means something like "big little" or "big narrow," a reference to the area where Santa Rosa Wash narrows.

After 10 miles, I turn right onto a loop of Indian 29 to see Santa Rosa Village, a small collection of simple homes scattered in front of a mountain range of the same name. The paved 2-mile road through the village loops back to the main highway.

The Gu Achi District Children's Shrine easily rates as the most unusual feature in the Santa Rosa area, but if you want to see it, be sure to ask permission at the district office in Santa Rosa. The shrine, a few miles northwest of the village, standsas a memorial to four children who, according to O'odham mythology, were sacrificed for the good of their people. The story, which teaches that the survival of the tribe rates as more important than the life of any one individual, is a long and complicated one, but the basic outline goes like this: A young man discovers water pouring from a