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Octopuses seen hunting together with fish

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Re: Octopuses seen hunting together with fish

#131

Post by saberience »

banannaise wrote: post #124
neerajk wrote: post #22

aside: me after reading the headline: Shouldn't that be Octopii? But no! "The plural form octopii is doubly incorrect. Firstly, octopus derives from Greek, not Latin; its etymologically-consistent plural form is octopodes. Secondly, even if octopus were a second-declension Latin noun, the plural form would be octopi; in the correct plurals radii and gladii, with which octopii is analogous, the first ‘i’s are part of…

While I'm all for a history lesson (and the double-I octopii is indeed simply incorrect) I take issue with anyone insisting that "octopi" is wrong: 1. Language is neither static nor a series of rules to be blindly followed. The way a word was pluralized 1400 years ago has limited relevance today. 2. As noted just about everywhere, "octopodes" looks insane in any modern English sentence because we don't pluralize any…

The best plural is simply keeping the word the same as the singular. I.e. "octopus". There are many animals using this form, e.g. fish, deer, elk, salmon, buffalo.

E.g. Look at all those octopus.

All the divers I know say it this way, easy to say, understand, doesn't make you sound like an asshole.

Re: Octopuses seen hunting together with fish

#133

Post by alwa »

banannaise wrote: post #119
crazygringo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why it is that "octopuses" just kind of sounds wrong? Is it the repeated "s" at the end? But we have no problem saying "buses" or "rebuses". Is it something to do with the plural of "fish" just being "fish"? But we have no problem making whales and dolphins plural with an -s. Is it that "-puses" sounds slightly vulgar, like we're talking about multiple female genitalia? I genuinely don't know. All I know is…

Because it turns it into a four-syllable word with three consecutive unstressed syllables. It has bad meter and ruins the meter of almost any sentence constructed around it.

I hadn’t thought about that, but that explanation suits me as to why “octopuses” comes off… I don’t know, muddy?… while the 1983 James Bond film named for the vulgar pun rolls off the tongue, even though they use virtually the same phonemes: it’s that the latter emphasizes the third syllable, making it metrical again.

Thank you for a nifty insight, whose effects I’d noticed but whose mechanism had never occurred to me before today!

Re: Octopuses seen hunting together with fish

#134

Post by jjtheblunt »

neerajk wrote: post #22

aside: me after reading the headline: Shouldn't that be Octopii? But no! "The plural form octopii is doubly incorrect. Firstly, octopus derives from Greek, not Latin; its etymologically-consistent plural form is octopodes. Secondly, even if octopus were a second-declension Latin noun, the plural form would be octopi; in the correct plurals radii and gladii, with which octopii is analogous, the first ‘i’s are part of…

I think what you cited missed the spelling aberration, since the -pus is a mistake, as it should have been -pous,-podes (singular,plural, nominative). the word is just a chimera.

also, the reality is

#define octopi octopodes

#define octopuses octopodes

and so on is what's more or less going on...whereas in English octopodes is a mouthful.

Re: Octopuses seen hunting together with fish

#135

Post by mistrial9 »

mellavora wrote: post #91
primer42 wrote: post #33

I love imagining how the fish are almost an extension of the way the octopuses think. Octopuses seem to have quite a bit of independent cognition in each of their arms, which are wrangled by the central brain. Now they're wrangling independent fish brains instead of octopus arm brains. Incredible

>Octopuses seem to have quite a bit of independent cognition in each of their arms, which are wrangled by the central brain. Yes, that's inherent in the design. All grey matter (optimized for local intercommunication), no white matter (optimized for sending signals between regions). Each arm has its own ganglion ("CPU") and the central unit struggles to keep up with these and keep them coordinated.

living brains are not "CPUs"

Re: Octopuses seen hunting together with fish

#136

Post by joenot443 »

saberience wrote: post #131
banannaise wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I'm all for a history lesson (and the double-I octopii is indeed simply incorrect) I take issue with anyone insisting that "octopi" is wrong: 1. Language is neither static nor a series of rules to be blindly followed. The way a word was pluralized 1400 years ago has limited relevance today. 2. As noted just about everywhere, "octopodes" looks insane in any modern English sentence because we don't pluralize any…

The best plural is simply keeping the word the same as the singular. I.e. "octopus". There are many animals using this form, e.g. fish, deer, elk, salmon, buffalo. E.g. Look at all those octopus. All the divers I know say it this way, easy to say, understand, doesn't make you sound like an asshole.

This is what I would say.

It does beg the question though, how’d we come up with the list of animals to pluralize like that? Why “five birds” but not “five deers?”

Re: Octopuses seen hunting together with fish

#137

Post by foldr »

banannaise wrote: post #119
crazygringo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why it is that "octopuses" just kind of sounds wrong? Is it the repeated "s" at the end? But we have no problem saying "buses" or "rebuses". Is it something to do with the plural of "fish" just being "fish"? But we have no problem making whales and dolphins plural with an -s. Is it that "-puses" sounds slightly vulgar, like we're talking about multiple female genitalia? I genuinely don't know. All I know is…

Because it turns it into a four-syllable word with three consecutive unstressed syllables. It has bad meter and ruins the meter of almost any sentence constructed around it.

In that case I say we go with oc-TO-pusses (as in photograph vs. photography).

Re: Octopuses seen hunting together with fish

#138

Post by philipov »

banannaise wrote: post #124
neerajk wrote: post #22

aside: me after reading the headline: Shouldn't that be Octopii? But no! "The plural form octopii is doubly incorrect. Firstly, octopus derives from Greek, not Latin; its etymologically-consistent plural form is octopodes. Secondly, even if octopus were a second-declension Latin noun, the plural form would be octopi; in the correct plurals radii and gladii, with which octopii is analogous, the first ‘i’s are part of…

While I'm all for a history lesson (and the double-I octopii is indeed simply incorrect) I take issue with anyone insisting that "octopi" is wrong: 1. Language is neither static nor a series of rules to be blindly followed. The way a word was pluralized 1400 years ago has limited relevance today. 2. As noted just about everywhere, "octopodes" looks insane in any modern English sentence because we don't pluralize any…

> 2... It also moves the emphasis to the second syllable.

Octopods - 8 times better than regular pods.

Re: Octopuses seen hunting together with fish

#139

Post by Mystery-Machine »

banannaise wrote: post #124
neerajk wrote: post #22

aside: me after reading the headline: Shouldn't that be Octopii? But no! "The plural form octopii is doubly incorrect. Firstly, octopus derives from Greek, not Latin; its etymologically-consistent plural form is octopodes. Secondly, even if octopus were a second-declension Latin noun, the plural form would be octopi; in the correct plurals radii and gladii, with which octopii is analogous, the first ‘i’s are part of…

While I'm all for a history lesson (and the double-I octopii is indeed simply incorrect) I take issue with anyone insisting that "octopi" is wrong: 1. Language is neither static nor a series of rules to be blindly followed. The way a word was pluralized 1400 years ago has limited relevance today. 2. As noted just about everywhere, "octopodes" looks insane in any modern English sentence because we don't pluralize any…

> Language is neither static nor a series of rules to be blindly followed.

It's also not open to arbitrary subjective opinion. There are rules, this is not 'Nam. :) Languages evolve, but you can't just claim something is correct because you think so or you'd love it to be so. It's incorrect in English language, today. Maybe in the future, when more people start using the plural "octopi", it will be correct.

Fun fact: Oxford dictionary changed the definition of "literally" to also mean "figuratively". https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/misuse-of-literally

Re: Octopuses seen hunting together with fish

#140

Post by philipov »

joenot443 wrote: post #136
saberience wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best plural is simply keeping the word the same as the singular. I.e. "octopus". There are many animals using this form, e.g. fish, deer, elk, salmon, buffalo. E.g. Look at all those octopus. All the divers I know say it this way, easy to say, understand, doesn't make you sound like an asshole.

This is what I would say. It does beg the question though, how’d we come up with the list of animals to pluralize like that? Why “five birds” but not “five deers?”

It raises the question - begging the question is something else.

As for the question, it probably has to do with the gender of the noun. I bet 'deer' derives from a neuter-gendered word in Anglo-Saxon, while 'bird' does not.

Noun gender is the system used by many languages to categorize words that have different declension rules. It's atrophied in English, but is implicitly still present in the various "inconsistencies" that pop up.

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