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Pooh-Bah
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And why do they call it "Georgia," anyway? Don't we all *know* who is king? Why "the great State of Maryland?" We all *know* that. Why "Mary," even though it makes a tad more sense than "land," Mary)? What is "octopus" about it, as Ian Flemming or his knock off son implied? It's all arms! And why "knock off?" He's a son, isn't he? I sometimes think that English is a language designed by a loser, spoken by a maniac, objected to by
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I think the state names were supposed to be bestowed as enduring honors. It would not seem intuitive to say "[We already know who the present king is] ia". I don't see the babbling angle in 'octopus'; a scientific derivation that makes sense. The point is English used to be more rational but is decomposing along with modern civilization. 
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of course english is decomposing! i can't read old or middle english, and i know less about german or latin. the language has so decomposed over the centuries that it bears no resemblance to what it once was!
and all along there has been confusion..
one of my favorites is the plant commonly known as columbine, --because some thought the flowers looked liked doves drinking water. the latin name, is (unspellable by me!-- aquaelgia?) from the latin name for an eagle-because other people thought the flowers looked like an eagles talons.. take about differing views!
so does an octopus have 8 feet (pod being latin for foot), or goes it have 8 arms..
well i guess its a matter of how you look at it.. for the most part, only primate have arms, (other animals have 4 legs, not arms and legs) to be consistant, an 8 armed creature is well, wrong, but an 8 footed creature is OK. i guess we'll have to launch an educational campaign to make sure no one refers to an octopus as having arms.
but hey, when or where were humans (in any language or any culture) consistant?
didn't someone say that "consistantcy is the hob-gobblin of small minds" --(and you want to make an arguement for consistancy in things that don't matter?.. isn't that a...(where is sprints wheel of adjectives? i could use an adjective right now) idea?)
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Sorry, forgot that 'loan' verb counted as colloquial usage (hillbilly). 
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All right then, now I understand the octopus gag. I suspect the 'pod' element is a generalization. Those may look like arms to a human, but to the octopus they function at least partly as feet.
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Quote:
just a polite question, Mr. 11:
do you enjoy language?
Concerned you might have missed this post, I'm repeating it: So, do you, Aramis?
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the latin name (kingdon? geneis? species? --one of those-- unless its one i left out) has octopus as belonging to the cephlapod family.. (cephla=head, pod=foot)
knowing as much as we now know about octopuses, i would think calling their appendages fingers would be almost as good a word to use as foot.. (a cephladigi or something of that sort. it's a thought.)
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Pooh-Bah
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Okay, Cinderella, let me try it a different way. Why say the PIN number? Because when PINs first came out of the closet, nobody who now wanted cash out of an ATM had ever heard of a personal identification number to acronyminate, so "PIN" came down on them like a sudden mystery with cash in her panties. People needed to use it and it didn't make any sense, so they stuck "number" after it. That caught on, the banks decided it was cheaper to use it than hire operators to field questions on what the hell a PIN was to begin with, and so they began to use it, too. That, anyway, is the explanation that seemed most likely at the time I was observing all this stuff going on. The same holds for ATMs, although why they needed both "teller" and "machine" in the longed-out version to begin with is beyond me. People probably just called them cash machines, because that's probably what most people used them for, to begin with. Preferring to use real live tellers for other transactions, because who the hell trusts these machines to record a deposit and, anyway, you might get lucky and it'll spew the works on you and you can take Brunhilde out for drinks and dinner and hoyotaho all night long. So that's about it, I would say. Language has this utility factor, see. People use it. And if something's needed but not particularly catchy out of the box, well, then people will jerry rig it, because it suits 'em better. And if it suits others better too, well, hey, there you go, another bastard,s born of our bastard tongue (See. "Spit Baby"). So the thing is, smell the roses: have fun with English. After all, she's only having fun with you.
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formerly known as etaoin...
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"Loan as a verb is entirely standard having been in use since the 16th century, at least; carried over to this continent in the language of early settlers, it has continued in use ever since Its use is predominately American and includes literature but not the more elevated kinds of discourse. If you use loan remember that its regular use is literal; for figurative expressions, you must use lend." [Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Eglish Usage, p.610]
"Lonyng and leying out of the same for gaines in purchasing landes." [1542-3. Act 34 & 35 Hen. VIII, c. 2. sec. 1.] I've never really thought of Henry Tudor as a hillbilly, but ...
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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