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Today's Maven's word of the day is "ruckus" and it discusses how to pluralize said word (whether it's ruckuses or rucki). They cite octopus as a word that, like ruckus, ends in -us but does not take the -i ending in the plural.
AHD gives this etymology: New Latin Octps, genus name, from Greek oktpous, eight-footed and offers the plural as octopuses or octopi.
Perhaps it's not -i'd because it's from the Greek, and is New Latin (I assume this means Latin words coined in modern times by taxonomists and others scientific types - is this correct?).
Prior to reading this, I'd have been tempted to correct anyone saying octopuses. Who of y'all says which?
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Prior to reading this, I'd have been tempted to correct anyone saying octopuses. Who of y'all says which?
This matter was the topic of an email I sent to Anu. In an AWAD email it gave octopi as a possible plural, but did not list octopodes One of my dictionaries lists octopi as "wrong", not as an acceptable option. I asked Anu why his bulletin did not list octopodes, but the query was deemed unworthy of a response. While I have more less settled on octopodes, your post got me wondering what a group of octopodes is called. Any ideas, anyone?
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There's something I remember being attributed to Dr Johnson, but I can't confirm that it is. Treat it as a joke or an urban legend until someone can find it in Boswell or find the correct source. Anyway, someone -- I always imagine Edna Everage glasses and a strong Texan accent (sorry) -- says, "Oh, Dr Johnson, tell me, is the plural of octopus, octopi or octopodes?"
To which he replies, "Madam, that shows an ignorance of three languages."
First point. Latin does not form the plural of -us by changing it to -i.
This is true only for second-declension nouns, which are the majority of those ending in -us, but there are plenty in the third declension (corpus ~ corpora, Venus ~ Venera, opus ~ opera), and plenty in the fourth declension (status ~ statûs, hiatus ~ hiatûs). In Latin, the second declension -us ~ -i was never generalized into the other declensions. It was and remains wrong to form *corpi or *stati, Classical Latin, Mediaeval Latin, or New Latin.
The Greek word pous 'foot' had plural podes. The Greek oktopous was taken into Latin as octopûs (not octopus) and would have been a third-declension noun with plural octopodês.
Now in post-Classical Latin, the distinction between long and short vowels was lost. Octopûs would have changed to octopus. At this point it would have looked like a second-declension noun -- in the nominative singular anyway. They might have lost the declension octopodem, octopodis etc. and created a new one octopum, octopi etc. This actually happened with the related word polypûs, which has given modern 'polyp', a sure sign that it had strayed into the second declension at some point.
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.
As for a collective of octopuses: an army? a handful? a clutch?
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I don't think the ignorance of three languages was Dr. Johnson. I think it was an eminent classicist visiting Australia in the 1920s but the name escapes me at present.
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Octopuses is the correct English plural form, but you will still hear octopi, 'irregardless' of this fact.
>As for a collective of octopuses: an army? a handful? a clutch?
How about a tentacle of octopuses.
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Rouspeteur suggests How about a tentacle of octopuses.A pod of octopodes? 
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<<a pod of octopodes?>> an octopod?
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For what it's worth, i'll share this:
our beach is a small cove, with both ends formed by rocky outcroppings which extend 60 yards or so into the ocean, forming incredible caves below the surface, which is maybe 30 or 40 feet deep at the end of the rocks. as you might imagine, this makes for absolutely *stellar* year-round snorkelling and diving (though the water gets too cold by mid-December for most of us, and doesn't warm up again til April or May. today it's only 58 - brrr~rrrr), as the sea-life is both varied and plentiful. you're guaranteed to see several bright-orange Garabaldi, which is a protected fish here in California, as you swim through schools of thousands of tiny fish which somehow you can never seem to touch, though at times it's as if you're parting a solid wall of them. there are often leopard sharks, which are stunning in their beauty and gentle unless cornered, as well as sandsharks, rays, halibut and other fish of every shape and size, so spearfishing is immensely popular among the residents. in addition to magnificent tidepools which boast crabs, anemones and urchins (which are edible but not particularly appetizing), the rocks near the surface provide homes to starfish, sea cucumbers (grossout) and (i'm getting slowly to my point here....) if you look carefully you're sure to find an octopus or two. these are small creatures (fist-sized discounting their tentacles), not the huge ones you see at disneyland's submarine ride.
okay, so here's my point, if anyone's bothered to read this far: since it's obligatory to report on what you saw as you climb back out onto the beach, i've seen folks (myself included) tackle the octopus/octopi/octipode conundrum quite often, and almost without exception we simply treat it as a collective noun; ie "I saw three leopard sharks, a halibut, and a couple of octopus". i guess it's probably poor grammar, but it would sound extremely stilted and pretentious if someone were to utter either "octopi" or "octopode" in anything other than an attempt at humor.
~b
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I have another plural that I have never come to grips with: deer. Any thoughts on the plural? I saw a deer on the road today. I saw two deer on the road today or I saw two deers on the road?
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Doesn`t "deer" fall into the same category as "hair" where both are applicable depending upon the sentence and context. We had a thread about this several months ago but I can`t find it (remnants of a misspent youth I guess).
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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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(I wonder, did they not hunt ducks in England?)
Or is it that the collective we call ducks, they had names for-- I know the names of some game birds-- but many birds where eaten--
perhaps hunters went hunting for canvas backs, or mallards, or eiders or (okay, i reached my limit on duck names-) but what about other water fowl-- in England swans are protected game, but what about pelicans--(who's beaks can hold more than their bellys can?) or cormorants?
I don't know enough about varieties of water fowl, or hunting to know hunters if one went out for mallards-- and what other birds where hunted. -- or where they domesticated fairly early one--like geese?
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English waterfowl
Not a word question, but maybe our English colleagues can give a reply: I have read that swans in the UK are protected, as all swans are the property of the monarch. True?
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Follow google to Swan Upping. Swan Upping is not, as the name may imply, some ancient bestial (are birds beasts?) practice, but the practice of catching and counting the Swans with marked beaks, owned by specific guilds, and those with unmarked beaks which are owned by the Monarch. Also of course the cygnets belong to the marked parents have their beaks marked. Thinking about it, this refers to the Thames - I think some of the Oxbridge colleges own (and possibly eat) swans, and I think us lower classes [touch forelock emoticon] can own swans now as well.
No native pelicans in UK, as far as I know, but cormorants.
Indulge me a poem I know on cormorants, please, pretty please?
The common cormorant or shag, lays eggs inside a paper bag.
The reason you will see no doubt, is to keep the lightning out.
But what these unobservant birds, don't realise is that herds
of wandering bears may come with buns, and steal the bags to keep the crumbs.
Thank you.
Rod Ward
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Indulge me a poem I know on cormorants, please, pretty please?
No problem, Sweetie! :-)
We have cormorants here. I'll have to look for their nests.
Interestingly, as far inland as Louisville is, we also have a few seagulls, and just before Christmas I could have sworn I saw a pelican flying along. (That's when the guy behind me crashed my car.)
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all we have here is coots and loons
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I have heard this applied to sheep as well
"fishes" to sheep? [harharicon]
I thought fishes was fish whether cod or not...?
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"all we have here is coots and loons"
But what kinds of birds?
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Swan Upping
Rod, thanks much for the pointer. Most interesting. I suppose that that silly girl who wore that frightful dress at the Oscars show would have been prosecuted in England? She should have been, for wearing such a monstrosity. On top of that (as my father-in-law used to say) she can't sing worth a damn. And besides that (as I say) she has ugly legs.
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Maybe from your window IP, but NY is part of the great fly by for a lot of migrating birds-- and birders all over the country come to Centeral Park and are blown away by the variety of birds-
and those of use in the outer boros-- we get lots of birds-- I'm on the north shore (LI sound) but the Great Bay at Jamaica has thousands of wonderful species-- and did you read the article in the New Yorker about the problems being caused by tropical parrots-- who now have made their home in Brooklyn-- and are extreme bored-- and like bored teen agers-- commit crimes of petty vandalism? teens tend to do graffiti, parrots pull apart cable connects-- and interfere with telephone and cable service!
and as for Loons-- i have never seen one in NY!
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fishes - cod
But if one kind of fish beats another, is that codswallop?
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<<Maybe from your window IP>>
Who's talking about birds? And all I ever meet is loons.
Old Coot
Oh, and I never did see that article, but I did meet an arborist once in Central Park who told me about such a one they called Fred. He'd been living in the sanctuary on CP South for 3 years then. Next day, I was eating lunch when who should roost on the bench-arm beside me but...Yep! The worse for wear, but hanging in.
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<<but what kind of birds?>>
Ah, Sparteye, were you here beside me now, how wonderful the answer!
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<<codswallop>>
And what is that
Forever left behind,
Inselpeter
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<codswallop>
You have to do a search so as to avoid a YART.
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<<codswallop>>
Followed it up: think I should change my name?
IP
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Sparteye couldn't resist : "all we have here is coots and loons" But what kinds of birds?
Being made of sterner stuff I shall say simply that we have loons at Loon Lake in New Hampshire. Their cry at night across moonlit water is hauntingly eerie and beautiful.
There was also a character called "Loon" in a comic strip
(name escapes) about the newspaper business. "Loon" was the photographer and was portrayed as a camera-bedecked caricature of the loon. I think the artist chose loon as there is a mental connection between loon and looney (crazy in a nice, sort of befuddled, way) as photogs all have the reputation for being a bit looney.
So naturally the photog at our paper was immediately dubbed ....
wow
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<< I think the artist chose loon as there is a mental connection between loon and looney>>
I always figure looney came from loon, as in "crazy as a loon" for their "crazy" call.
No?
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Can't argue with that.
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A Brit friend told me that killing swans was one of the few capital offenses still in force in the Old Country (along with stealing from a naval yard, throwing popcorn at the Queen Mum - important stuff like that).
Can anyone cross-Pond shed light?
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Could our UK friends help me out, please?
Anna S wrote re death penalty in UK : stealing from a naval yard, throwing popcorn at the Queen Mum - important stuff like that).
There was a story on TV about some high ranking Commonwealth official who put his hand on HRH Elizabeth's back ... puportedly to guide her, or help her up steps, or some such ... the story was about the hoorahrah that "The Touch" caused in Britain!
That's all I heard.
Any truth to it and if so would someone enlighten me as to whole story?
I think I read somewhere that in earlier times it was punishable by death to touch/strike the Monarch ... is the rule still in effect? Does it have special name?
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I have never seen a Maori equivalent of a a lei. I suspect that climate may have played a part in that. Before the arrival of Europeans, there were few "flowers" as such here, certainly not with the spectacular blossoms seen in Hawaiian lei. It would take some very nimble fingers to be able to fashion any sort of garland from native flowers. The nearest equivalent was the giving of cloaks, made from different materials according to the stature of the recipient. Kiwi feather cloaks are still made from time to time, as the Department of Conservation often gives dead specimens of culturally important fauna to local Maori for traditional use. Cook Island Maori do make lei, though I'm not sure what they call them. They also give one blossom for the recipient to place above the ear.
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There was a story on TV about some high ranking Commonwealth official who put his hand on HRH Elizabeth's back ... puportedly to guide her, or help her up steps, or some such ... the story was about the hoorahrah that "The Touch" caused in Britain!
That's all I heard.
The "high ranking Commonwealth official" in question was the staunchly Republican Paul Keating, then Prime Minister of the penal colony immediately to the west of NZ.
Loki Q.
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the great fly by for a lot of migrating birdsYes, a spectacular feature of the E coast isn’t it, Helen? Years ago I worked for Doris Duke on her Somerville NJ estate. Her wildlife-friendly policies were so friendly that several thousand Canada Geese thought “Hm, good pickins here, why move?” So they stayed. All year round. It reached just about crisis proportions eventually – they would eat the hell out of all over-wintered crops on the farm, and until you have seen the guano of several thousand geese paddling about in a small paddock all winter, you do not know the meaning of green and slippery!One time, Doris was at last persuaded that something had to be done if the farm were to survive. Since the prerequisite was being kind to goosy-woosy and money was no object, she actually had loads of staff chasing the fat flightless wonders around the estate with nets, until they could all be scrambled into trucks. They were then trundled up to her place in Rhode Island to be released in their wonderful new home. Took ‘em almost five hours to stagger back to Joisey And then there were the deer…
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As for a collective of octopuses
Maybe octopuses don't hang out in groups?
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<<Duke's geese>>
'Canadian Blight' is a 'problem' all over the tri-state area. A couple of years ago, one community had a goose roundup and hunters killed about 200 birds with buckshot. They wanted to use the meat to feed the homeless, thus killing two.., but it never made mess. The meat was lead-riddled, and too tough to cut. Of course, all this had been predicted by Burl Ives years before in the Ballad of the Gray Goose.
-Binky
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<<maybe octopuses don't hang out in groups>>
At least as hatchlings [or newborns?] they do. Groups of thousands of these tiny octopuses near the water's surface are a feast for seagulls and very few survive. [trulykon]
-binky
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On death for interfering with the Royal Swans (or downing them when they should have been upped, whatever): it might have been a crime in the Middle Ages, but all such wacky offences (being obliged to practice the crossbow, shoot Scotsmen in York etc.) were wiped off the statute books in massive culls around 1850. Any mention of them being current is an urban myth.
I think high treason and arson in a naval dockyard were the last capital offences, abolished only a few years ago. High treason (crimen laesae majestatis) included the usual things like murdering the monarch and rebellion, but also compassing or imagining the death, wounding, or imprisonment of the King, Queen, or Prince of Wales. Which puts a bit of a damper on innocent speculation if you take it too literally.
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wiped off the statute books in massive culls around 1850
Yes, Dear Nicholas from London, but what about the hoorahrah caused by The Touch?
Max Q said in above post that it happened in Australia ... was the outcry confined to that Commonwealth outpost or did the London press also carry the story? Send by PM if you'd rather, and have time.
Thank you
wow
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear Maverick: What the geese eat is one thing. What they leave behind is something else.There was a story in Smithsonian Magazine about a large company in Virginia with wide landscaped surroundings including a large pond. When geese got to be unbearable, they had a Border Collie specially trained to herd them into the pond. Allegedly the geese wanted the grass, and left when denied it. And the bleeding heart tree huggers could not complain geese had been abused.
In the same area I was concerned about Dulles Airport having to tolerate large numbers of geese flying to and from a pond close to runways. One goose could destroy an engine and cause a crash.
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
I have never seen even one octopus in the wild. But once in a while the Cape Cod Canal would have many, many squid, same family but the size of a hotdog, come through with bluefish slaughtering them, and the beaches would be littered with dead ones.
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
touching the queen
WOW, Nicholas W has given a good reply. The name is indeed high treason, and simply raising one's hand in a menacing fashion was sufficient to constitute this offence, as was the intolerable assault of putting horns on the monarch, as two of Henry VIII's wives were accused of and executed for. [There's an elegant construction for you!] The punishment for one of noble status was beheading; for a commoner, hanging, drawing and quartering (a really horrid affair, depicted with a good deal of editing in the conclusion of Braveheart) and this was still on the books at the end of the 18th century --Dickens, in A Tale of Two Cities has Jerry Cruncher, the resurrection man, bemoaning the prospect of Charles Darnay's being "spiled".
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Joined: Mar 2001
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
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as was the intolerable assault of putting horns on the monarch
Would this be to make a cuckold of the king as in Merry Wives (is it, or another?). Horns were the sign of a cuckold.
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