Something I've been seeing more and more on sports blogs and websites is reference to the places where teams play as stadia.

It's been a long time since I've had an AP Stylebook, but I'm pretty sure it was the AP book I used back in the 1990s where I read that "stadia" should be used as the plural of "stadium" only when referring to the ancient unit of distance. Since most writers will never have reason to refer to the unit of distance (I certainly don't), as a practical matter that essentially means always use "stadiums".

But in the past year or two, pseudo-educated writers have begun to say "stadia" as if it's a normal word. It doesn't read normal to me at all. It reads pompous, like "Ooh, look at me, I know Latin." Does this usage have any consistent history in English? I don't have the data, but my impression is that "stadiums" has been the plural ever since the word adopted its current meaning some time in the 1800s, and it's only recently that "stadia" has been resurrected.

Because "stadium" in its older meaning persists in the language, it's harder to get a definitive answer from a dictionary. In Merriam-Webster for example, "stadium" gets a single entry with definitions 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b, 2c, and 3 ranging from ancient to modern. The entire entry is preceded with "-dia" or "-diums" for the plural, but there's no specification of which plural goes with which definition.

Likewise, "index" gets a single entry with multiple definitions, and the plural is specified as "indices" or "indexes". In fact, it would be quite wrong to use "indices" when referring to the sections in the backs of books. Most writers know that instinctively, but one can't rely on the dictionary to say so.

In contrast, for "premium" none of the older definitions persist, so the Merriam-Webster does not acknowledge "premia" at all. It was the old Latin plural but there's no place for it in English. I've also seen more of "premia" lately, referring to payments made to an insurer. I think it's the same as with "stadia". Both are false attempts to appear more classically educated, and both are wrong.

The etymological path of "stadium" goes something like this. A stadium was a certain unit of distance in ancient Greece, and then the unit was imported to ancient Rome. A certain foot race was run at the length of one stadium, sort of like today we might have the 100-meter. At least one major race-track venue in ancient times had the track designed to be exactly a stadium. From that, the track itself came to be called the stadium. It was with that meaning that the word entered the English language, where in the 17th century it meant any track for racing. It then evolved to refer to not just the track, but the entire venue. After that it came to be any structure for viewing a sporting event, not necessarily a foot race.

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