Octopuses Octopi Octopodes" /> Octopuses Octopi Octopodes" />

Tenticular Gesticulation

Being a blog about my inexplicable fascination with octopodes

NOTE: I am not a marine biologist, I am just an idiot with a blog

Octopuses Octopi Octopodes

Why 'Octopodes' (ahk·TOP·uh·deez)?

First things first - if you run on down to your local aquarium, or go scuba diving in the right places, and you see several eight-legged cephalopods hanging out together, you would be perfectly correct to call them octopuses. As weird and incorrect as it may sound, that is indeed the commonly accepted and proper pluralization of octopus. Discregarding the root language, that pluralization follows normal English rules (for varying definitions of "normal", which have only a passing intersection with the English language.)

If, on the other hand, you decide to call them octopi, well, you're wrong. Seriously, you are just wrong. I mean, nobody is going to send you to prison or anything, but you are likely to be assaulted by any passing Grammar Nazi. What makes octopi so horribly wrong? It's because pluralising by changing 'us' to 'i' is a Latin grammatical rule, whereas octopus comes from a Greek root.

The scientific Latin term octopus was derived from Ancient Greek ὀκτώπους (oktōpous), which literally translates to "eight-foot" (ὀκτώ "eight" + πούς "foot").

- Source: Wikipedia (If I read it on the internet, it must be true.)

Because it comes from a Greek root, the grammatically proper way to pluralize octopus is octopodes. Being Greek, it is also not pronounced in three syllables like AHK·tuh·PŌDZ but rather in four syllables like ahk·TOP·uh·deez. (Speaking of Grammar Nazis, I am neither a grammarian nor an English teacher. Feel free to send me hate mail regarding my incorrect phonetic spellings. I'll ignore it, but by all means send it if it makes you feel better.)

I will readily admit that octopodes is not frequently used, and I may sound pretentious in preferring it over octopuses, but there you have it. To my ear it sounds so much more delightful and alien, as befits the weird and wonderful beings to which it applies.

Here's an editor from Merriam-Webster explaining the whole thing: