What is the plural form of Octopus?

[selfAdjoint]

On the serious note I was always taught octopi was the plural and the English language is a strange thing as it adds new words all the time including slang terms and and popular uncorrect terms. This makes the language very diverse and also full of tripe. It would never occur in most other languages

There is a general theory of why this happens and it does happen in all languages. When new words are added based on old words, the old rules of syntax are dropped and the standard rule of the new language are applied. The example I remember is "Toronto Maple Leafs", not "Leaves".
.

Anyway the "learned plural" of octopus ought to be octopodes; it's a Greek word, not a Latin one.

 

[Mk]

what about the fish

More than one fish is fish unless there is more than one species or kind of fish—then it is fishes.

Virus? (viri or viruses(standard))

Depends on what context. Hackers and virologists spell it different... on or the other tends to like viri or virii better. Any of the following really will due, based on its etymology, and rules/orthodoxy of Latin/English:

Viri, Nirii, Virius, virora, vira, virua, vire, viruses

 

[Rach3]

Depends on what context. Hackers and virologists spell it different... on or the other tends to like viri or virii better. Any of the following really will due, based on its etymology, and rules/orthodoxy of Latin/English:

Viri, Nirii, Virius, virora, vira, virua, vire, viruses

Politicians.

 

[Chi Meson]

More than one fish is fish unless there is more than one species or kind of fish—then it is fishes.

Kinda like "monies" right? Its a plural plural.

From "Seinfeld": "In fact she had many many monies."

 

[selfAdjoint]

More than one fish is fish unless there is more than one species or kind of fish—then it is fishes.

Or Biblical, "Loaves and fishes".

Or comically poetic:

"...How cheerfully he seems to grin...
And welcomes little fishes in..."

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

I think what important is that people understand what you are trying to say, if it turns into some sort of etymology dicussion it usual isn't anything to do with your prose or a thread, but more to do with lack of reason to argue with it. At least in a forum and in real life also.

Pedantic points are fine, but most people ignore them as they are of little worth if the discussed point were fully understood by all. When someone who is foreign to the language gets pulled up it's educational, when a versed speaker get's pulled up you can usually tell that they don't want to respond to your points because they are troubling, so they resort to picking apart grammar and spelling, beware all pedants, they are seldom worth your consideration, and in fact it's against many of the more educated forums rules; Speak your mind, if someone doesn't follow your exact meaning they will usually have the decency to ask you to clarify, if not ignore them.

You should spoke what you believe and hope people would consider it in the interest of continuation for discussioned purposes.

Plenty of grammatical error but was the prose understandable and was the conjugation acceptable?

 

[Gelsamel Epsilon]

(Sorry for this in advance)

So letz continu ta mutlate tha english language

don't matter slong as yu understoods

 

[Moonbear]

(Sorry for this in advance)

So letz continu ta mutlate tha english language

don't matter slong as yu understoods

The problem is, it can quickly deteriorate to the point where you're not understood. You should have seen the thread where we were all trying to translate the text messages someone (Chroot maybe??) was getting mistakenly sent to his phone! We started to suspect it might be a foreign language.

 

[Pythagorean]

Spouse, spice.

i like this plural

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

If you're are Scotish the plural of moose is mouses or mice.

As in their's a moose loose around this hoose.

 

[star.torturer]

yep. got ths song?

 

[Anttech]

I'm rather sure it was originally octopi inheriting the Latin declension, and octopuses was a bastardization. Some people would say adding the "es" makes it a standardization, because it agrees with some other plural forms. I call it bastardization.

Actually it is a hellinicised Latin word. A word that was used in latin from Greek (latinised Greek). So it is really a greek word, putting an 'I' on the end would be a Latin suffix, the Greek plural should be octopodes...

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Octopus