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What Is The Proper Plural Of "Octopus"?

Octopuses is the common English derivation (and in the OED, so a legit word in it's own right): octopi would be correct if it was a pure Latin noun, but as it derives from Greek it should be octopodes.

Funnily enough, there was a thread about plurals in Website Issues, here just the other day (in which I drone on about them some more :)).
 
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light said:
Quake said:

Octopodes!

(Sorry, pedantry getting the better of me again...) :D

Octopuses! (according to Fowler's modern english usage)

pedantry? nah....
Nope, octopodes is correct.

Otherwise octopus is acceptable as a plural as well.

Lightweights...
 
Sorry folks - I have to disagree about the plurals of octopus...

It's like this:

1 octopus is actually a monopus
2 are a bipus
3 are a tripus
4=quradrapus
5=pentapus
6=hexapus
7=heptapus
8=octopus
9=nonopus (but also is used when there aren't any)
10=decapus
20=dodecapus
etc.

I think I'm still pissed from last night - oh dear!
:shock:
 
Did anyone think that octopi was a newly described creature? That I didn't mean the plural of octopus? Yes or no? As no one made any comment that could be taken that way I'll assume that no one did. So what the fuck was the point of all the posts off thread arguing as to which is the correct form for the plural of octopus?
 
Caroline said:
Did anyone think that octopi was a newly described creature? That I didn't mean the plural of octopus? Yes or no? As no one made any comment that could be taken that way I'll assume that no one did. So what the fuck was the point of all the posts off thread arguing as to which is the correct form for the plural of octopus?

:shock:
 
What's an octopi ?

We've had this discussion before and the conclusion was that Octopi is not even the correct plural. If it's Englished (that's a new word I just made up): it's octopuses, but if you want to keep it authentic 'octopus' is Greek (not Latin), so the plural is 'octopodes' (ok-TOP-uh-dees, like antipodes). It looks like a second-declension masculine noun (like dominus, plural: domini), but it was an Greek loanword.
 
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We've had this discussion before and the conclusion was that Octopi is not even the correct plural. If it's Englished (that's a new word I just made up): it's octopuses, but if you want to keep it authentic 'octopus' is Greek (not Latin), so the plural is 'octopodes' (ok-TOP-uh-dees, like antipodes). It looks like a second-declension masculine noun (like dominus, plural: domini), but it was an Greek loanword.
I never studied that other popular ancient language, so it is all very much Greek to me. I was aware of the controversy over cephalopodic spellings, but this is the first time I learn of the pronunciation, thank you. But I haz a question: does that mean that a singular antipode is in fact an antipus?
 
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I never studied that other popular ancient language, so it is all very much Greek to me. I was aware of the controversy over cephalopodic spellings, but this is the first time I learn of the pronunciation, thank you. But I haz a question: does that mean that a singular antipode is in fact an antipus?

I'm a bit of a faker in as much as the only Greek I had to learn was for my ancient philosophy, which required almost no grammar, but as far as I can see...

An antipode is already a singular.

However, a quick search suggests that the word 'antipode' didn't exist as a Latin or a Greek word; it is an English back-formation from 'antipodes'.

Antipodes (ἀντίποδες) was the Greek plural noun:

Anti (ἀντί) = opposite + podes (πόδες) = feet. So idiomatically that which stands opposite.​

The singular of 'podes' (πόδες) was 'pous' (πούς), which gives a singular for antipodes as antipous, I think, but that might be notional and never have actually existed for all I know.

And, yes, that's the same 'pous' that is 'Englished' as 'pus' as in octopus (ὀκτώπούς), which is what probably sparked your question.

If, like me, you're wondering why it isn't 'octopodes' for the singular, one creature having eight legs (not 'eight foot'), it's because octopus in Greek means 'eight-legged' not 'eight legs' (it's identical as both adjective and noun, the noun implied it being a thing: 'eight-legged one').

As to the correct pronunciation, I just looked it up. I know that the stress in Greek can only fall on the last, the second from last, and the third from last syllables (the ultima / the penult / the antepenult), and that which it is frequently depends on the vowel length of the ultima, but the niceities are beyond me.

Should you be masochistic in this area, see here:
http://www.chioulaoshi.org/BG/Paradigms/accents.html
 
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