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NicholasW - thanks very much for the very complete reply. I know my latin fairly well (although it seems to be rustier than that of AWADers a good deal older than me - must be living too fast) but have never studied Greek or how words have moved from one to the other, so your explanation helped.
From now on, I will form the plural by saying "I saw a whole mess of them things what got eight armses."
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what got eight armsesLOL, Hyla - good to know we all come away from AWAD with a little extra enlightenment  But I would still go for octopussies, me.
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To sum up: 'octopodes' is Greek, 'octopi' isn't Latin (or is bad post-Classical Latin, and scientific New Latin always strives to use good Latin)... and 'octopuses' is English. It's an ordinary English word, not technical, so there's no reason not to use the English plural.Thank you Nicholas, octopuses it shall be. By the way, do you know anything about a possible Etruscan origin for "Caesar"? 
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I think 'sheep' is the only animal noun that can't take the -s morpheme for plural, but I won't swear to that.
Game animals generally take zero plural: two deer, two partridge, two snipe, two moose. But farm and other non-hunted animals: two rabbits, two voles, two horses, two eagles. It occurs to me now you also use -s with sex-specific terms: two harts, two bucks. (I wonder, did they not hunt ducks in England?)
Fowler says somewhere that this tendency can be carried too far: saying two elephant may go down all very well in the Travellers Club in Mombasa, but the rest of us say two elephants.
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I think 'sheep' is the only animal noun that can't take the -s morpheme for plural, but I won't swear to that.
Herein NZ, there is a battle of sorts going on over pluralising the names of native fauna. Maori does not add "s", so in Maori, one would say "rua kiwi" for "two kiwis". The argument is related to the debate over PCness, with some saying that the words in question are now part of NZ English, and so shoud be pluralised in the standard English fashion, while others say that Maaori conventions should be followed. The word that is most consistently not pluralised is Maori itself, it is now common to hear one Maori, two Maori.
p.s. The double "a" in one instance of "Maori" above was initially a typo, but I left it in because that is how it should be spelled when using fonts that do not include vowels with macrons above them, used in Maaori to indicate long vowels. I do not normally follow the doubling rule because it looks ugly.
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I think 'sheep' is the only animal noun that can't take the -s morpheme for plural, but I won't swear to that.
and some plurals refer (in my mind anyway) to different types of animal, so "fish" can be used as a general plural but "fishes" refers to some cod, some bream, etc. I have heard this applied to sheep as well, but it sounds awkward so is probably wrong (Somone's First Law of Language?).
Rod Ward
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did they not hunt ducks in England?)
Fowler says...
and a Fowler is..?
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and a Fowler is..?Someone who hunts ducks, of course!
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Maori does not add "s", so in Maori, one would say "rua kiwi" for "two kiwis".
Thanks Max! There are no plurals in Hawaiian either. It is one lei, two lei, three lei, etc. And it it's your college graduation day you may have so many lei around your shoulders they come nearly up to your eyebrows!
By the way, when you wear a lei do not let it hang with the end resting against back of your neck like a necklace ... move it so the flowers are equal front and back. Looks much better and is most "proper" way to wear a lei. A lei given to you may be given to another person - thereby "sharing the aloha" - but NEVER EVER put it back on the shoulders of the giver ... BIG insult.
When a lei is given a kiss on the cheek and a light embrace go with it.
Max : do they give lei as greeting/friendship/for no reason in NZ?
wow
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