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News & ArtsWednesday, July 15, 2009
??!! The Reason It's "Octopuses" and Not "Octopi" (Really, It's "Octopodes," but That'll Never Catch On)
Posted by Brendan Kiley on Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 11:55 AM
Just in case you were wondering. From etymonline.com:
OCTOPUS 1758, genus name of a type of eight-armed cephalopod mollusks, from Greek oktopous "eight-footed," from okto "eight" (see eight) + pous "foot." Proper plural is octopodes, though octopuses probably works better in English. Octopi is from mistaken assumption that -us is the Latin noun ending that takes -i in plural.
People thought the word came from Latin, it really came from Greek.
Noted.
1
You know, I like Octopodes much better. From now on, I will only use octopodes and correct all around me of the proper term.
3
This is just plain awesome.
Thank you. You've just made discussion of cephalopods that much more interesting.
Thank you. You've just made discussion of cephalopods that much more interesting.
4
Yeah, it's all about octopodes.
Am I the only one who thinks this is almost definitely going to be the most interesting Slog post today?
Am I the only one who thinks this is almost definitely going to be the most interesting Slog post today?
5
More generally, once the word completes this "comes from" process, it's an English word, and takes an English plural. The plural of "campus", which is "from Latin", but is English now, is "campuses", not "campi".
If you people disagree with me on this point, you are ignoramodes.
If you people disagree with me on this point, you are ignoramodes.
12
see also, "Tense Present: Democracy, English, and the wars over usage" by David Foster Wallace in Harper's (2001),
http://www.harpers.org/media/pdf/dfw/Har…
http://www.harpers.org/media/pdf/dfw/Har…
13
Not even all Latin nouns ending in -us form the plural by adding -i. Only 2nd declension nouns do.
Opus, for example, is a 5th declension noun, so the plural is opera.
Opus, for example, is a 5th declension noun, so the plural is opera.
14
A note from one of the former hosts of the Seattle Spelling Bee at Rebar, Webster's Third International Unabridged, the bible of the English language (and I dare you to contradict me), declares that both octopi and octopuses are acceptable. So suck it random internet website that says otherwise.
15
This reminds me of utopia/dystopia. People assume that "utopia" is like "eutopia" or "good place". It is actually more like "outopia" or "no place"("nowhere place"). The logical inversion then is not "dystopia" or "bad place" but rather "pantopia" or "every place"("everywhere place").
I doubt the world will ever switch from talking about "dystopias" to talking about "pantopias", but I do dream about it a little bit.
I doubt the world will ever switch from talking about "dystopias" to talking about "pantopias", but I do dream about it a little bit.
16
Is the plural of 'cactus' still 'cacti'? This has sounded wrong to me lately, but I think maybe it's just because I know about octopi being wrong.
18
the real question is: who gives a shit? the sheer force of qwerty economics dictates that it will forever remain octopi. no amount of "correctness" will ever displace the mass will of the people.
21
I vote for octopus as the plural of octopus. Surely at some point oktopos was borrowed into Latin, and likely as a fourth declension noun with it's plural as octopus, same as the singular.
22
@21 Kinaidos. I was going to put something about octopus being borrowed into Latin as a reason why "octopi" was valid, but you make an even better point. I'm convinced.
23
@15:
The reason why "utopia" means "a land of perfection" is not because it is a misspelling of "eutopia" (which is considered an obsolete word in Modern English, actually), but because it comes from Sir Thomas More's 1516 treatise "Utopia" in which he describes a "place so perfect it does not exist (ou-topia)." Semantics sometimes has to do with the meaning of the roots of a word, and sometimes it has to do with the *pragmatics* of how the word came to be used, no matter the etymology of the parts of the word (cf. "catch-22," "spartan," etc.). In this case, the word "utopia" is a reference to an actual text, and educated speakers are not committing anything remotely close to an error when using the spelling "utopia" in the Morean sense; "eutopia" by contrast can be seen as a hypercorrection in that it shows off the writer's ignorance More's writings.
@21:
You're absolutely right that it's a fourth declension or "u-stem" noun in Latin, so the plural in Latin was and is actually "octopus." The genitive singular is also "octopus."
The reason why "utopia" means "a land of perfection" is not because it is a misspelling of "eutopia" (which is considered an obsolete word in Modern English, actually), but because it comes from Sir Thomas More's 1516 treatise "Utopia" in which he describes a "place so perfect it does not exist (ou-topia)." Semantics sometimes has to do with the meaning of the roots of a word, and sometimes it has to do with the *pragmatics* of how the word came to be used, no matter the etymology of the parts of the word (cf. "catch-22," "spartan," etc.). In this case, the word "utopia" is a reference to an actual text, and educated speakers are not committing anything remotely close to an error when using the spelling "utopia" in the Morean sense; "eutopia" by contrast can be seen as a hypercorrection in that it shows off the writer's ignorance More's writings.
@21:
You're absolutely right that it's a fourth declension or "u-stem" noun in Latin, so the plural in Latin was and is actually "octopus." The genitive singular is also "octopus."
25
If anyone's wondering, it's pronounced "oc-to-po-days" more or less. Also: http://www.thinkin-lincoln.com/index.php…
26
Um, I suck at posting a link apparently. Or maybe I just suck at posting because I also forgot to indicate that the stress is on the second syllable.
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