🐙 Octopus is Octopus 🐙
(midwest.social)
fossilesque
Science MemesI thought it was octopuxen?
I do like octopods. I will use that from now on and you can't stop me.
Lv7: the legs [of]* two octopodum got tangled, so the octopodes asked help from two other octopodibus.
ENOUGH OF THE NOMINATIVE TYRANNY!
*it feels weird to use "of" with genitive, it's like saying *"the leg of one of the cat's".
One of my favorite things in life is using Latin or Greek plurals on words that it makes absolutely no sense to use them on, and do not follow the rules of any language naturally involved.
I had steak and potati for dinner last night. Just one steak, though, I cannot eat multiple steakices
I also do this! My personal top 3 are:
Jesus - Jesi
Bus - Bi
Penis - Penorum
Penis - Penorum
WROOOOONG! Now write the full declension table on that wall. And make sure to draw some pictures with it, so you never forget the word! :-p
People called Romanes, they go, the house?!
I have a wealthy friend who has a penorium in their house.
Reminds me of a joke:
A Roman soldier walks into a bar and says, "I'll have a martinus"
Bartender says, "don't you mean a martini?"
The Roman says. "if I wanted more than one I would've asked for it!"
For decades now, my wife and I have used "Kleeni" as the plural of "Kleenex".
Kleenex is Kneenes according to the rules of Latin, actually
Looks like you beat us to level 7
2π: two pi
π: one pus
Octopodes nuts
2 octopus = 1 hexadecipus
4 Quadropus = 8 bipus
Call 'em whatever you like, they're all octobussies to me.
Its whatever your heart is telling you.
Any mistake I make is actually just my dialect
Don't bother correcting my English grammar, as I have no respect for this language <3
And if folks knew what you meant, it's fine
That is what 'descriptive' in level 4 means
Octopoden!
There were manny of them! Manny much octopoden!
American English: "All of the above are valid."
"Even 'octopussies?'"
American English: "...sure."
Aham, there's some precedent
There is a difference in Octopussys here. One is slippery, the other is not.
"even 'octopussies'?"
american english:
Search engines: Sir, this is a work computer
Just researching adaptations of classic literature.
my my my, what a cunning linguist!
It's technically octopods
This is true for the scientific sense that it's order Octopoda (e.g. the plural for members of Hexapoda is "hexapods" and likewise "decapods" for Decapoda), but then it's kind of like saying the plural for "lobster" is "nephropids". The names are close for Octopoda and octopus, but it's still taking the colloquial name and pluralizing it into its scientific name. It's not specifically "to bring it in line with cephalopod"; that's just how generic names of members of taxa ending in 'poda' work generally.
Strictly speaking, "octopods" is the plural of "octopod".
Once I learned that “octopodes” is pronounced oct-TOP-o-dees not OCT-uh-pohds it became my pluralization of choice.
Octopodes nuts
“Quadrilogy” was such an all-out assault on etymology, semantics and reason that it just made sense when I learned that a CEO came up with it.
Merriam Webster's response: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s166nC_hiZ0
I spent the entire 2nd half of that video in fear that it was actually an elaborate "octopodeez nuts" joke
Now I'm afraid to but too curious not to ask where might I find the octogoose?
In hell, next to cerberus probably.
you gotta make 'em yourself
Student: "language is prescriptive not descriptive"
Teacher: "you fail 3rd grade spelling"
And I absolutely support keeping people back who believe English should be guided and evolved through "Likes".
Putting aside the technicalities (it is not language that is prescriptive or descriptive, but linguistics), that's a widespread position among perfectly literate people, including professional linguists. Nothing to do with the number of "likes".
Sure, languages evolve I guess but this isn't really that IMO.
The whole idea of etymology is that you can figure out what a word means from its roots. If you throw all that out, you give up the scaffolding that makes words make any sense. Same goes for grammatical rules. It seems like the argument for descriptivism is "let's not be elitist when people become less competent with the rules of a language", and while that's a fine ideal, yer usin ma words wrong!
I suspect there is also a body of professional linguists who oppose your point for the same reasons.
On a very fundamental level, the scaffolding that makes words make sense is the neuron structures in your brain which fire when they recognize certain sounds/scribbles. Things like etymology and grammar are not necessary for a language to be used for communication (in fact, languages existed for much longer than the notions of etymology or grammar). Both of them help make the language more standardized and thus more understandable, but they are not required - you can totally make yourself understood without knowing about either of those things.
The whole idea of etymology is that you can figure out what a word means from its roots.
That was the idea in ancient Greece when the name of the endavour/field was created (etymon = "true"). In the 19th century when linguistics became a serious science it was effectively becoming abandoned, and quite clearly criticised by 20th century linguists. Words' meanings and forms shift inevitably, they've always been shifting, and trying to pick one single stage of this process as the right one is basically like saying that the earth is flat because from any individual vantage point it looks flat to you.
If you throw all that out, you give up the scaffolding that makes words make any sense.
No, you don't. 99% of people don't know the etymology of 99% of the words they use. Not even linguists have definitive answers for the etymology of words such as 'boy' and 'dog'. Words' meanings are actually established by usage, by tradition as it's handed down to us, with some leeway in how we accept and modify the tradition. (These mechanisms of language change are many and affect various levels of language.) Note that cultures that don't have scientific etymology still have perfectly functional languages.
It seems like the argument for descriptivism is “let’s not be elitist when people become less competent with the rules of a language”
That's one of the arguments, but as you can see I don't think it's crucial.
I suspect there is also a body of professional linguists who oppose your point for the same reasons.
There are some professional linguists who are active as prescriptivists. Their number varies depending on the country, in Anglophone countries their number is miniscule. In countries with a more pronounced prescriptivist tradition (as in mine, I'm from Croatia) their number declines through time as academia accepts and integrates modern linguistic theories, and the remaining prescriptivists' positions soften. And I can't help but notice that many of the current prescriptivists are shoddy linguists and ideologically motivated (elitists, conservatives).
The prescriptivists are actually quite thin on the justifications for their approach. They won't theoretically or empirically defend prescriptivism, arguments for it amount to vague and unscientific claims of a need for order and clarity in language (which exist regardless of prescriptivist intervention), and such stuff. But even they usually don't dare to go so far as to claim etymology is the source of correct meanings, because they know that holding such a position would immediately lead into absurdity and extremism. Leaf through an etymological dictionary and try to stick to the oldest meaning described there. You'll quickly realise that the source of correct meanings can't be the words and forms from 500, 1000, or 4000 years ago. In fact, I've seen prescriptivists attack usage that's been around for centuries, or demand people follow semantic distinctions between words or constructions that never existed at all.
A book recommendation, if you're interested: L. Bauer and P. Trudgill, Language Myths.
You sound like the kind of person who beat up black people because they don't speak good enough according to you.
different languages and institutions have different viewpoints. Turkish and French are more prescriptive, english and spanish more descriptive*
* except when it comes to those gay alternate pronouns, like ew, we can't reflect the documentation of a language for a few Fa-[slur]s.
Spanish from Spain has an official dictionary that dictates what is correct and isn't. You can't be more prescriptive than that. Sure, that dictionary adds words based on usage, even ones that are clear misspellings of the "real" word, but they are marked as so.
The RAE is not a prescriptive institution at all. They fight people on social media over that. They're not shaming anyone for spelling a word different, just describing what the language users are doing.
Octopussies is actually the name for a harem of Maud Adams clones
So... 2 cephalopods, 1 cephalopus ?
Cephalussy
Next, we pronounce "apoptosis".
Cephalopus
It should just refer to the number of tentacles. So, for two of them, it would be sēdecimpus
Octopuses have limbs known as "arms."
Tentacles are a different thing, like the two that squid have (the rest are also arms.)
Level 3 is the most correct.
You think we're using a Greek word not an English word?
Nah, level 1 is actually correct. Regardless of its etymology, octopus is an english word and should be pluralised accordingly.
Level 3 includes level 1 in it, with the addition of a plural using the original language's rules.
It would only work the other way around. If english grammar dictates that a loan word's original language grammar be used. Aka level 1 includes level 3. You cannot just throw some other languages grammar at english however you please
You cannot just throw some other languages grammar at english however you please
.. because English would steal said grammar by itself!
Of course you can, that's why oxen, fungi, etc. exist.
Oxen is historically a 100% English plural, just like child-children, it wasn't loaned. (I should check, but I'm pretty sure it's the same -en as in German plurals: das Auge, die Augen.)
Some of these Latin plurals can survive for technical terminology. But it's pretty much only Latin ones, due to the historical prestige. Nobody talks of Soviet apparatchiki, it's apparatchiks.
Not really. Depending on the noun, the plural may be -us (called u-declination) instead of -i (called o-declination)
Example: modus is also modus in plural.
Octopus is a word of Greek origin. Nothing to do with Latin rules.
Octopus is an English word so it is perfectly correct to pluralise it as octopuses. To use octopi is definitely wrong (it's the wrong foreign pluralisation), octopodes is using an uncommon foreign pluralisation so it's not wrong, just non standard
Yeah that part is correct but the first part of the sentence of level 3 is not :)
Ah, so you really have an issue with level 2.
Seriously, it should be "octopoda".
I cannot NOT read the title as Polysics singing “Coelakanth is Android”
If you're at level 5, must you call it an octopoose? May we?
Octopiss
Here I was calling the octopussies.
