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octopus (lemmy.world)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I am the guy in the middle, except I'm telling people it's octopuses.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

You do have the benefit of being right though.

The word octopus is a classical Greek word that comes to English via Latin. The Greek plural is octopodes, the Latin plural is octopi. But we don't speak Latin or classical Greek. We speak English. Because octopus is the English word for octopus it follows the English rules for pluralization, which is to add "s" or "es" to the end of the word. Cases can be made why octopi and octopodes could be technically correct, but for English speakers octopuses is the most correct.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Yeah, I did something for work where I had to study up about it and instead of being angry it's just kind of a fun fact. I don't actually mind what people say, I think everyone understands what you mean regardless.