Octopus plural

[jack]

I thought this was settled in my mind but now I looked up Octopus plural on the internet again and this time it says Linnaeus made it up we can use whatever plural we like and "octopi" has been common since the beginning even if it wasn't grammatically faithful at the time...?

Maybe we should ban saying any of "octopuses" "octopi" and "octopodes" are any more correct than each other and let people use whichever they like??

Comments

[marnanel]

My guiding principle is that disputes should be resolved in favour of the way nouns mark for number in the language actually in use. I have never understood why those who complain about others not using Latin plurals in English sentences don't also complain about people not declining the noun according to the Latin case system.

[jack]

I've always said "-es" should basically always be OK, and getting fancier than that is ok (and sometimes necessary, like wearing a tie), but not insisting that that's the only "correct" way.

I think people have real difficulty accepting that there's not one "correct" way (usually what they're used to) -- people expect language to have a "the" right answer in all sorts of situations. And that makes it hard to say "well, both of these were sort of mistakes, but actually, either is fine!"

[marnanel]

Agreed entirely-- TMTOWTDI. This is why I said disputes should be resolved that way, where disputes exist. But I suppose what I really meant was that people should say what they please, and the only thing that really bothers me is people telling others that using -es is wrong.

[redbird]

"Linnaeus made it up" just means that we know who came up with the word; it's not an exception to some Adamite naming or Platonically more "real" names like "horse."

That said, anyone who gets pedantic about "-pi" being wrong had better be happy with "octopodes," which is valid under the "use the forms of the root languages."

At some point I may look up some animals whose English names have non-Indo-European roots so I can ask those people what they think the proper plurals of things like "kangaroo" and "indri" are, and why.

[highlyeccentric]

Kangaroos. If you wanted to pluralise it in the relevant indigenous language, you wouldn't be spelling it with a K, first up...

[seekingferret]

I don't see any point in arguing with pedants, so when I know I'm talking to some pedants I know, I'll say octopodes to avoid a stupid fight. Otherwise I don't give a shit and use all three interchangeably.

[highlyeccentric]

Linaeus made it up, but he made it up *in Latin*. Bad latin is the scourge of 19th c science...

[jack]

:)

That sounds apt. But does it tell me which plurals are ok? (Other than, "whatever" :))

[highlyeccentric]

Nope! You have to pick your grammatical team, before that information is useful to you. Team Prescriptivist will probably say octopi, because of original usage. A subset within team Prescriptivist might strike out for octopodes on grounds of Greek, arguing that even if Linnaeus did not write octopodes he *ought to have*.

But Team Descriptivist (including functional) Grammar most likely would say both octopuses and octopi are in use therefore both valid. Then you'd need to refer to your house style guide: I'm pretty sure guides operating on principles of Plain English would say octopuses at least for the non-specialist audience.

Some confusion may be encountered because prescriptivists refer to dictionaries, but the OED (highly regarded by prescriptivists) is in fact a *descriptive* dictionary. It gives equal weight to octopuses and octopi and lists octopodes as rare. The OED has never cared to tell you what you *should* use, merely to describe what people *do* use and have used.

And Team Webster, who was a sort of revisionist in favour of making the language make *more sense* than it did in his day, might well Octopuses because it's neater in English. Which is different to *because that's what people already do*.

[jack]

LOL! Good description.

"You have to pick your grammatical team"

In fact, what I'm actually getting out of this is not necessarily anything about "octopus", but more like, Jack subconsciously assumes there's a "right" way to say things that will make no-one annoyed, but actually there isn't, and choosing the one most appropriate for the situation and accepting some people will be aggravated at you for being elitist/ignorant as inevitable is necessary, and it doesn't mean you did anything wrong, you just have to accept it.

Which is actually really really valuable and a lesson which sinks in slightly more each time I realise it... :)

[highlyeccentric]

There's certainly no Right Way with grammar! I am an ideological descriptivist and a practical prescriptivist (I'm an ESL teacher, prescriptivism is inevitable in that field), and capable of being either a structuralist or a poststructuralist linguist depending on the day.

Although I don't approve of systems of *talking* about grammar which don't account for common language roots. If your functional grammar of English does not make sense when defining, say, what a verb is, to someone who speaks French or German, you have failed to understand the concept of Indo-European languages. Or you are a professional troll, which in the case of one elderly scholar of my acquaintance, is probably the case.

[pseudomonas]

Anything that means I'm allowed to keep saying "walri" is OK by me :D

[jack]

I think we had this conversation before, and you reckoned "walri" was fun, but I wasn't supposed to deploy "leviatha" as a burst-weapon against pedants. Where exactly is the line drawn? :)

[pseudomonas]

What were you basing the an → a on?

[jack]

I was going to joke "whatever annoys other pedants the most", but OK, I think I'm just being indefensible here :)

More seriously, I think the literal answer to why my brain did that is "leviathan and leviathon sound pretty much the same to me, and my brain generated a plural based on the sound, not the spelling". Not that "why" means it's correct :)

[seekingferret]

levyatanim

[jack]

:)

[seekingferret]

China Mieville uses the plural 'shadchans' in Kraken and I found it really wrongfooting.

[(Anonymous)]

I thought there was only one Leviathan.

[jack]

Bzzzzt! Then you were wrong. There's either no leviathans, or lots (depending if you think they're a mythological creature, or whales).

If you mean "there's only one of it, so people never need to use the plural grammatical form", then you are ALSO wrong, forgetting statements like "Monotheists don't believe in multiple Gods".

[(Anonymous)]

Pretty sure there's only one, actually. We're talking about the same Leviathan, right? Giant monstrous sea-serpent, famously difficult to draw out with a hook?

Yep, if it's that one, then there's only the one of it. That was the whole point of why Hobbes chose the name to indicate the need for a single sovereign authority, as of course everyone knows.

[jack]

Actually, I don't know anything about it at all, other than it was mentioned in the bible, and by Hobbes...? Can you tell me?

[(Anonymous)]

You might as well ask 'What's the plural of Grendel?', or 'is it Medusas or Medusae?', for all the sense pluralising 'Leviathan' makes.

[jack]

There are thousands of hits for "two grendels" on google. I agree you people can use what plural they like, but they indisputably DO use a plural ;)