Plural of Octopus

[jack]

Go and answer the questions here: http://robert-jones.livejournal.com/186405.html?nc=3

Has anyone else read Orson Scott Card's[1] Lost Boys? Step claims he looked up "octopus" and the dictionary said the plural "octopus" or "octopuses", and that "octopodes" was only used referring to more than one species of octopus.

Does that last bit make sense to anyone? I couldn't find anything like that; did he make it up?

[1] How do you abbreviate that? Why does Orson Card sound wrong?

Comments

[filecoreinuse.livejournal.com]

My understanding is two-fold. One, although sounding it, 'Octopus' is not a Latin word and hence does not follow the Latin rules when being pluralised in English (unlike datum and data). Secondly it actually comes from the Greek 'octopous'[1] of which the plural, in Greek, is 'octopodes'.

It is then your choice. Using the usual OED convention, the plural would be 'octopuses' but a pedant would probably choose 'octopodes'[2] for harmony with the rules for pluralising imported Latin words.

Generally I'd view 'octopuses' as safest since, if one is in heathen countries, one can even get away with 'datums'.

As to the distinction between multiple examples of a single species of octopus and multiple examples of differing species I can find no real justification beyond convention.

[1] I've transliterated, I'm not typing Greek into LJ. Purists would probably moan at me doing kappa -> c but I think it looks better in this context.
[2] And then argue over pronounciation.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Go and tell him! Robert asserts that the word was imported to english from latin, and hence whatever latin plural was used would be acceptable; and also that this plural is probably octopi. I don't know enough latin.

As to the distinction between multiple examples of a single species of octopus and multiple examples of differing species I can find no real justification beyond convention.

Do you know of such a distinction? I wanted to know if anyone did use 'octopuses' and 'octopodes' differerently as I couldn't find any other cite but that book.

[antinomy.livejournal.com]

I'm reminded of the rather odd decision by the Physiology department here to use the word 'tetrapod' rather than 'qaudruped' to describe four-legged animals.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Funnily enough I came across the term "tetrapod" the other day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrapod, and when looking through my inbox to see if I'd ever heard it before, I saw this. I can't remember *where* I heard it now, but I was amused. Did you mean that, or a third sort of four-legged thing?

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

I don't believe I have ever had to contend with more than one octopus at once. :-)

[simont]

It's odd, that, isn't it? Some names just don't sound right without the middle name.

I remember being a bit confused when Owen talked about books by "Guy Kay", I think because the "Gavriel" in the middle is by far the most memorable bit and the bit I recognise first. "Lee Oswald" sounds like some guy you've never heard of, but stick "Harvey" in the middle and everybody's heard of him.

I think the problem with OSC is partly that "Card" sounds more like a common noun than a surname, and "Orson" isn't all that common either, so "Orson Card" sounds as if it might just as easily be (say) a special feature of "Magic: The Gathering" as a person's name. The "Scott" in the middle makes it much more clearly a name, even if a slightly odd one.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I think it's simpler than that, I think we just get used to it if we hear the same way always: I think even famous names where the first or surname is most distinctive but the middle name is always used also sound odd without, if not quite enough.

"Lee Oswald" sounds like some guy you've never heard of, but stick "Harvey" in the middle and everybody's heard of him.

Free drink to the first person to make an "invisible harvey" joke!

[edith-the-hutt.livejournal.com]

Silly people. Everybody knows that the plural of octopus is squid. :P