The other night I was doing some work with a young private and came across the word “octopusses” in his grammer book. I had never seen nor heard of this form of plural before so looked it up in his Longmans dictionary. It showed both “octopusses” and “octopi”, the latter which I was taught. Back home, I checked the Merriam-Webster and it, too had both plurals shown. Called someone else who looked it up their Oxford dictionary and it had NO plural form listed.
I’m curious… what terms are others more familiar with? To my mind, “octopusses” sounds stilted. Maybe it’s because it’s new to me, however…
From Australia, Definitely Octopi, Although it certainly doesn’t surprise me that this change is coming around. And as much as like “octopi” I think it’s about time.
Octopus is one of the early words that is taught to 2nd language learners, due to phonics. And to try and introduce the “i” ending at that stage is just plain confusing!!!
Heh - this is actually a subject which I’ve spent some time researching in the past, for sad reasons of my own.
The ‘correct’ plural of octopus is octopodes, because it’s from a Latinised Greek word and not Latin as most people assume (which would make it octopi). Octopuses is also acceptable following the ‘English’ rule of plurals.
Garner’s Modern American Usage says one thing on this issue that I think is a good rule of thumb for teachers of English as a foreign language and native-English speakers:
If you are aking this question for the purposes of teachign studnts of English, then I’d follow the rules based on English rather than those based on Latin or Greek. I’m sure the old ‘octopi’ latim-based plural forms will fade away anyway.
But ‘octopusses’??? My Oxford says ‘octopuses’. Surely this is better. Ends in s - add es. Just like buses.
[quote=“Bu Lai En”]I’m sure the old ‘octopi’ latim-based plural forms will fade away anyway.
[/quote]
I don’t have much confidence that ‘octopi’ will fade away anytime soon. This inflection is a modern, hypercorrective error to which many modern English dictionaries have succumbed.
Thanks you all for your input! Bu Lai En, I too, thought that an extra “s” was excessive in “octopusses”. Originally when I saw the word in the grammar book I thought that it was an error, having found several in the book already. Now I am looking at explaining to a ten year old that dictionaries each have their own interpretation of the spelling of words. As if it wasn’t difficult explaining that lots of words are exceptions to the rules! Aughhh! I still prefer “octopi”.
Oh, and “bus” shows in the Merriam-Wester as both “buses” and “busses”. To make things balance I propose that we start calling them “busi”. :s
So is it pluses or plusses? I was taught to double the ‘s’ before adding -es to differentiate between short vowel endings and long vowel endings (plus vs. pluse), but I guess as English becomes more simplified, people ignore the old rules. It took me a long time to write the plural for ‘bus’ as ‘buses’. It still looks like it means more than one buse.
So shouldn’t you also double other endings? “He fixxes the car”. So that people don’t think it’s a long ‘i’ like ‘fixe’. We doube when adding ‘ing’ and ‘er’ or ‘est’, but not ‘es’.
Yeah, ‘octopi’ is a hyper-correction based on a false comparison to ‘rhinoceros’ or ‘hippopotamus’ . ‘Octopodes’ or ‘Octopuses’- when in doubt, Anglicise.
So shouldn’t you also double other endings? “He fixxes the car”. So that people don’t think it’s a long ‘i’ like ‘fixe’. We doube when adding ‘ing’ and ‘er’ or ‘est’, but not ‘es’.
Brian[/quote]
i concur. and i’ll add ‘ed’ to your list.
i think this is so because -es is only added to words ending in s, ch, sh, x and z.
interesting you said “fix,” in fact the final x is never doubled, alone among final consonants. maybe this is because a word like “fixe” is not possible. this is true for ch and sh as well.
leaving only s and z as potential sources of confusion. since few words end in z–which is doubled? quiz–quizzes, no? make that only s.
i suppose most words ending in a short vowel and s combination end in ss, so its just not a big enough problem to worry about. interesting that imaniou remembers such a rule, it would seem to have merit for quiz quizzes–which seems right to me–and bus busses–while buses seems correct to me and i believe is the common dictionary entry, busses would seem to be more explicit.
[quote=“totallytika”]Thanks you all for your input! Bu Lai En, I too, thought that an extra “s” was excessive in “octopusses”. Originally when I saw the word in the grammar book I thought that it was an error, having found several in the book already. Now I am looking at explaining to a ten year old that dictionaries each have their own interpretation of the spelling of words. As if it wasn’t difficult explaining that lots of words are exceptions to the rules! Aughhh! I still prefer “octopi”.
Oh, and “bus” shows in the Merriam-Wester as both “buses” and “busses”. To make things balance I propose that we start calling them “busi”. :s[/quote]
The issue here is American English versus British English. Often British English doubles consonants in plural inflections where American English doesn’t.
If you really want to confuse the child , try explaining the descriptive, rather than prescriptive, nature of dictionaries. This is why ‘octopi’ is listed in some recent editions, but is unjustifiable if one only takes into consideration the Greek, not Latin, origin of the word.
I think the use of ‘octopodes’ is pretentious. It’s use is likely to cause confusion among those not familiar with Greek, and I doubt many people would argue that ‘octopus’ should still be considered a non-English word.
Completely agree - unless there was some damn good reason for it (I’m thinking Scrabble or playing “I’m a bigger geek than you” ). Octopuses works fine, as, for that matter, does octopi (in terms of communication rather than ‘correctness’). I do like knowing the word though.
The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, Australia)
March 26, 2005 Saturday
SECTION: LOCAL; Pg. 24
HEADLINE: Octopi prefer two legs to eight[/quote]
Good idea. See how the media do it. Below is one option that I don’t think has been mentioned yet: according to one Associated Press story picked up by various sources including ABC News, the plural of octopus is octopus.
.
, try explaining the descriptive, rather than prescriptive, nature of dictionaries. This is why ‘octopi’ is listed in some recent editions, but is unjustifiable if one 
). Octopuses works fine, as, for that matter, does octopi (in terms of communication rather than ‘correctness’). I do like knowing the word though.