Nuts. I’m out. I’m going to go play with my neighbor’s podessycat.

In order for “-i” to be the correct Latin (and thus English) plural, the Greek word would have to be “ὀκτώπος” (oktopos), which would cause it to end up as a 2nd declension noun in Latin.

Some have pointed out that Latin words ending in “-us” have sometimes have plurals in “-ūs” (a long “u”, as opposed to the short “u” in the singular). Those are 4th declension nouns, but Greek lacks a 4th declension so Greek words don’t become 4th declension nouns when they are imported into Latin. But if “octopus” were 4th declension, then the English plural would be “octopuses” as 4th declension nouns typically have “-es” tacked on to the plural in English. An example is “census”, which has “censuses” as its English plural, but “censūs” is the Latin plural.

That said, I still like using “platypi” because it simply sounds neat. But I might give “platypodes” a chance.

But if you’d like us all to throw away our apostrophes and resort to a combination of baby talk slang and txt-speak then go ahead repeat your mantra.

Good luck with that.

I mean surely they can’t all be right just because “language changes”

aren’t some of them philistines and aren’t I some kind of linguistic stone gnome?

I could care less.

No, you couldn’t.

;^)

Especially one who speaks as if Britain, or even England, were united in one pure and ancient dialect? This is, of course, nonsense, and the official “Queen’s English” is an artificial construct spoken natively by a tiny minority of a tiny minority, if indeed anyone speaks it natively at all (it’s like Klingon in that respect).

And if you want to talk ancient provenance, the closest thing to Shakespearian English spoken anywhere in the world is in the US, in Appalachia (NOT considered an appropriate standard these days).

English English has changed just as much as American English since the two diverged. To argue that English English is somehow the “real” language because it stayed at home while American English went seeking its fortune is narrowminded hometown provincialism of the most ridiculous kind.
_____
*Note the zee** there
**Not zed, zee

Did it actually occur to anyone that it is really hard to find 3+ octopodes, or, an octosplosion/octoparty? I understand that especially the male specimen are sort of rogues and prefer to be alone except when mating (well, that’s new ^^). Putting two males in a tank together is a bad idea, too. So one might not have to be embarassed after all, for you will see no “school” of octopodes passing by or whatever.

“Zed’s dead, man. Zed’s dead.”

But anyway, back to the octopus. Very informative video. I shall use ‘octopuses’.

Actually, I remember this as a plot point from an Orson Scott Card story I read around 16 years ago. Why do I remember that? I don’t know.

If I used it here I’d be a net-twit.

(I do have one irrational pet peeve concerning pluralization. The correct plural of lemma is lemmata. I know that my insistence on this is irrational.)

The plurals are actually Latin too; octopodes is a Latin 3rd declension plural, based on the Greek. Not everything changes from -us to -i: the plural of fructus is fructus.