(March 17, 2024 at 1:48 pm)Paleophyte Wrote:(March 8, 2024 at 2:52 pm)FlatAssembler Wrote: Plural of "octopus" is not "octopi". Where do people get this nonsense from? "Octopus" is a Greek word (ὀκτώπους), not a Latin one (where plural of "-us" nouns is mostly formed with "-i"), and the Greek plural is "octopodes" (ὀκτώποδες). In English, the plural of "octopus" should probably be "octopuses", or maybe "octopodes", but certainly not "octopi".
"Octopus" isn't Greek, it's English bastardized from the Greek "oktopous". The worst that you can say about "octopi" is that it's misconceived, but then so is the whole English language.
So the correct plural of "octopus" is "octopi". Because it's the common usage and, more importantly, it pisses off the pedanticists.
Despite our resident "expert", @FlatAssembler, giving his typically unstudied and ignorant opinion, octopi, octopuses, and octopodes are all generally considered correct or, at least, not incorrect. Interestingly, spell check, oddly, only recognizes one.
FlatAssembler, did you write the code for the spellchecker?!?
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