You must log in or # to comment.
They have more than 7 reproductive organs?
As a native greek speaker, I find anything other than “octopuses” to be silly. In greek we don’t say (any more) octopodes, we say “chtapodia” (the “ch” is the canonical (ELOT) transliteration of the letter χ).
Could you just clarify one thing? I was told that the plural wouldn’t be octopodes, but octopoda, similarly to what you used for modern Greek.
In modern Greek, singular: χταπόδι, plural: χταπόδια.
Transliterated using standard ELOT (that maps χ to ch) singular: chtapodi, plural: chtapodia.
The word is composite and contracted. First part originally is οχτώ (8) (transliteration: ochto) but has been uncommonly shortened to χτα (chta). Second part is the word for foot (singular: πόδι/podi, plural: πόδια/podia).
So without the uncommon shortening in more archaic Greek it would be: οχταπόδι (ochtapodi) and οχταπόδια (ochtapodia).
If ELOT is ignored and οχτώ is transliterated as octo, then you can get to octapodi, octapodia.
Just like meese is the plural of moose
Plurals in English are always a bit of a roll of the dice…
No cheeses for us meeces :(
Or: Mouse - mice; house - hice
Octopodes, pronounced oc-top-o-dees, not oc-to-po-des. Like Hercules.
Also, using the I ending to pluralize us endings comes out of an attempted prescriptive reform of English in the late 1800s to make it more like Latin. We still use es endings to pluralize us singulars most of the time, the places where we use I are ether direct usages of Latin words or remnants of that prescriptive push.
Confused Squidward noises.
Your prof is Roger Moore?
Level 10: all forms are valid as long as enough people use them. The currently most used forms are octopuses and octopi, both valid, but octopi is malformed, so octopuses is preferred. Octopussses and octopii and rare variants of those. Also correct, but rarely used.
Octopodes is also correct, but considered pedantic.Level 11: Just use what you are used to.
Level ATF&C: Glob
I thought it was octopuxen?
I do like octopods. I will use that from now on and you can’t stop me.
Lv7: the legs [of]* two octopodum got tangled, so the octopodes asked help from two other octopodibus.
ENOUGH OF THE NOMINATIVE TYRANNY!
*it feels weird to use “of” with genitive, it’s like saying *“the leg of one of the cat’s”.
Call 'em whatever you like, they’re all octobussies to me.
“Quadrilogy” was such an all-out assault on etymology, semantics and reason that it just made sense when I learned that a CEO came up with it.
2π: two pi
π: one pus
Merriam Webster’s response: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s166nC_hiZ0
I spent the entire 2nd half of that video in fear that it was actually an elaborate “octopodeez nuts” joke
Octopodes nuts
