What's the plural of OCTOPUS? It's more complicated than you think [Tales from the English language]
The word octopus has four plurals in English all of them correct. You probably
think you really know which one to use and that's fine but you might change
your opinion after watching this so stay with me.
let's make the English Plural OCTOPUS it ends in S so the plural will end in ES
So we have octopuses you agree? Nothing controversial there but, just to be
absolutely sure let's check it on Gmail grammar checker. I write a lot of Gmail
because if you make a spelling mistake Gmail will underline the word in red. A
deep you-can't-spell-you-loser red here we go "potatoe" no no no "potato" much better.
"Today I had a cup of tea with two octopuses". Great it likes it let's move
on. Now octopus comes from Greek if you know your Greek, which I don't, and
probably you don't either. unless you are Greek then the plural is
ocTOpodes or is it OCtopodes I'm not sure if there's a Greek person out
there please help me but is it correct English? Let Google be the judge of that.
Today I had a cup of tea with two octopodes. Yes, yes thank you Google it likes it.
okay let's move on and now it starts to get controversial because a lot of
people say "octopi". "Octopus" sounds like a Latin word like cactus, fungus, stimulus,
nucleus. These are all second declension, masculine, Latin names. I sound brainy
don't I but I don't know Latin. I had to look that up. Anyway the plurals are
cacti, stimuli, nuclei, fungi there are other second declension masculine Latin
nouns that we Pluralize in the normal way with ES the plural of circus is
circuses not "circi" English is inconsistent and ridiculous
there are many ridiculi in English and many people familiar with all these
Latin words in English thought "ah octopus, it's a second declension,
masculine, Latin noun so the plural must be octopi" but it isn't. iI's
from Greek as we already know but what about Google does it accept it as a
plural? "Today I had a cup of tea with two octopi". Oh no big red line no it doesn't.
However the problem is, a lot of people say "octopi" Let's look at the ngram as
you can see "octopuses" is the most common but the second
most common plural is "octopi" until the 1920s "octopi" was the most common form of
the plural nobody says "octopodes" and that's going back all the way to the
1820s. octopi has been used in speaking and in written English for a long time.
now, if lots of people agree that octopi is a correct
plural you may not like it but it is. It's bad latin but it's good English. I
like to say of'en and ofTen we say soften and listen so it should be often
not ofTen it doesn't matter what I say and nothing so often to make it correct
pronunciation. yAnyway, here's a quote from the penny magazine for the
diffusion of useful knowledge London 23rd of April 1834. "it is certain that
the octopi do attain to a very large size in the Indian seas and
there is nothing improbable in their taking hold of a man and drowning him."
okay let's see what the dictionaries say about the word octopus the Merrian-
Webster gives the plurals as octopuses or octopi no mention of octopodes
Cambridge dictionary it's the same octopuses or octopi no mention of
octopodes. Dictionary.com is the same octopuses are octopi no mention of octopodes
Collins, on the other hand, give all three as being correct
including octopi so you're wrong Google you're wrong are you listening Google
you're wrong better change that. By the way I know you don't like it and you're
thinking "yeah I know but I don't want to speak bad Latin" but what about "data"? Did you
know that data is a plural "the data are correct" that's what we should say if we
are respecting Latin grammar. We don't say that we say "the data IS correct."
That's what everybody says. Even though it's bad Latin it's good English. The
single of data is datum nobody says "do you want to have a look at my datum." You
can say datum if you like but you're risk sounding like a complete plonker.
it's good Latin by its bad English. Okay that's three but I said 4 plurals didn't
I. So what's the fourth one? so the fourth plural of octopus is
octopus. When octopus or talked about as a food then the plural of octopus is
octopus. There are many other foods from the sea where the plural is the same as
the singular. Salmon the plural of salmon is salmon never Salmons the word Salmons
doesn't exist Cod, the plural of cod is cod. Squid plural
of squid is squid. Crab, when it's a food item the plural is crab we caught lots
of crab. Even the word fish the plural is usually fish although "fishes" does exist
and the plural of octopus is octopus "octopus are delicious" that's correct
"octopuses or delicious" no that sounds wrong
"in Japan they eat a lot of octopus" that's correct
"in Japan they eat a lot of octopuses" no no that sounds wrong so just let me show
you an example one of many I found on the web here's an article from Forbes
magazine and the headline is "The world is hungry for octopus what's wrong with
farming them." So octopus is being used in this context as a plural so octopus has
four plurals. By the way the word octopus is relatively recent in English
it only came into the language in the 18th century at a time when Latin names
were all the rage before that we call them poulps or prekes an English word with
a simple S at the end why didn't we just leave it at that? And now I'll give you a
quote this is from "A new view of London" by Edward Hatton in 1708 "The preke or
poulps they have eight fingers or arms wherewith they attack their prey and
if they are pursued they presently cast forth a black liquor and so darkening
the Water they make their escape. I think octopus is the only word in the
English language with four plurals unless you know differently, answers in
the comments. By the way, I was supposed to fly out to
the Indian Ocean to record this video but because of lockdown I had to do it
from my apartment here in Paris what pity but I hope you've enjoyed it