Penny Magazine for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (London, Eng.), 23 Aug. It is certain that the octopi do attain to a very large size in the Indian seas and there is nothing improbable in their taking hold of a man and drowning him. (headline and caption) Chicago Daily Tribune, 15 Jan. Incident of a Voyage in the Banda Sea-An Octopus Who Is Injured by a Sailor Calls Upon His Companions for Help-They Respond Promptly, and a Gang of Octopi Take Control of the Deck of the Vessel, Driving the Crew Below. The -i ending comes from the belief that words of Latin origin should have Latin ending in English (while octopus may ultimately come from Greek it had a stay in New Latin before arriving here).īESEIGED BY DEVILFISH. Octopi appears to be the oldest of the three main plurals, dating back to the early 19th century. But it is always better to be prepared with your irregular faux-classical plurals-good life advice in general, really-so here is a brief explanation of your choices. Given that most people don't often encounter multiple specimens of this genus of cephalopod mollusks it is unlikely that you will ever find yourself in sudden need of deciding which plural form is correct. The Bradford Observer (West Yorkshire, Eng.), 7 Nov.
In this condition of affairs, we are glad to know that a few resolute people have begun to talk about Octopods, which is, of course, the nearest English approach to the proper plural. Some daring spirits with little Latin and less Greek, rushed upon octopi as for octopuses, a man would as soon think of swallowing one of the animals thus described as pronounce such a word at a respectable tea-table. An article from over 140 years ago, "Octopus Philology" (titled in the clickbait of that era) offers three possibilities, admittedly sneering at two of them:īut as the Octopus grew and multiplied, it became necessary to speak of him in the plural and here a whole host of difficulties arose. Such a range of options might prompt even the most patient learner of the language to say "what the hell? C'mon, English, get your act together." This state of affairs is not so much the fault of the English language as it is of the people who speak it, who have been debating the proper way to pluralize octopus for a very long time. The current champion in the Battle of Troublesome Pluralization is octopus, which, depending on which dictionary is consulted, may be written in three different ways: octopi, octopuses, and octopodes. Rule of thumb: if English gets the opportunity to trip you up, it will. And just to keep people on their toes, certain words of Latin extraction may be pluralized with either English or Latin endings: multiple stadium may be either stadia or stadiums. Thus, the plural of bacterium is bacteria, rather than bacteriums. However, sometimes words will come into English and keep an ending from their original language, particularly if that original language is Latin. Our language takes words from a wide variety of sources generally when a noun enters into English it is pluralized as an English word, rather than in its native form.
One of the most effective of these is a method of pluralization that generally follows a set of rules, but occasionally behaves unpredictably. There are many ways that English manages to trip up its speakers, both native and non-native.
Lastly, octopodes stemmed from the belief that because octopus is originally Greek, it should have a Greek ending. Octopuses was the next plural, giving the word an English ending to match its adoption as an English word. Octopi is the oldest plural of octopus, coming from the belief that words of Latin origin should have Latin endings. The three plurals for octopus come from the different ways the English language adopts plurals.
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