[colechristensen]

There’s no right way. Octopus is a word created in modern scientific latin by nonnative (scientific) speakers out of greek parts brought into English. There are no real rules there.

It is not a loanword from Greek, it was meant to be a scientific latin origin word, but not native latin like other Latin words that have -us as endings for nouns.

It’s a mess, there’s no answer, pluralize as you like but don’t go telling anyone there’s a right way because there isn’t. It’s a greek, latin, and english word, but also none of them. No usage is standard or ultimately correct.

[euroderf]

> Octopus is a word created in modern scientific latin by nonnative (scientific) speakers out of greek parts brought into English. There are no real rules there.

I recall reading that back in the day, there were criticisms that the neologism "television" would never catch on ... because it combined Greek and Latin roots.

[anthk]

>because it combined Greek and Latin roots.

Romances in a nutshell.

[abudabi123]

Is it true the majority of imperial Rome personal names had -anus endings and they are not in vogue in Modern English for the obvious soundalike to Uranus?

And given the time available to an octopus while she waits for her eggs to hatch, what is the recommended reading list from the Loeb library for the octopus's consciousness if there were a universal translator babelfish she could use?

[anthk]

In Spanish it's the same. Ano = anus. Trajano, Adriano...

Yet we still have names ending in -ano. Mariano, Emiliano, Cipriano, Maximiliano...

[Aidevah]

There may be no universally agreed right way, but there are certainly wrong ways. "Octopuses" and "octopodes" are both acceptable, but "octopi" is wrong. "Octopuses" can be justified using Fowler's rule (from 1913!) "there is a tendency to abandon the Latin plurals, & that when one is really in doubt which to use the English form should be given the preference". "Octopodes" can be justified on etymological grounds. There is no basis to use "octopi" other than an erroneous application of the Latin rule to form plurals for second declension nouns.

[cnelsenmilt]

Personally I've always preferred to muddy the waters by treating it as a fourth-declension noun, so that its plural would be octopūs.

[OJFord]

There's a wrong way, though - anybody smugly telling somebody they're an idiot for saying 'octopuses' when it's actually 'octopi'.

I think 'octopodes' is 'most correct', but 'octopuses' is fine. And most will mispronounce 'octopodes' if they choose it anyway, so 'octopuses' probably would've been better.

[cupofpython]

octopodes nutz

[cupofpython]

so then we are free to allow any convention to take hold.

so why not use the multiple different potential pluralities to differentiate between same species, different species, and unknown species? I think the following would be the most intuitive!

Octopuses seems most intuitive and already assumes unknown species (ie used by children who dont even know what a species is)

Octopi sounds similar to a singular entity (no trailing s), so a group from a single species

Octopodes then could explicitly refer to multiple species together, as it changes the spelling a bit and also adds an s

Of course, conventions are not decided upon by a single persons thought process in a random internet forum - so I'm not sure why I wrote this out

[smcl]

I feel like there has to be one of those "galaxy brain" progression memes for Octopuses -> Octopi -> Octopodes

[JohnKacz]

Love it. This is now my convention. So it's at least TWO people in a random internet forum!

[mbg721]

So essentially, the squids are alright?