Answer: You really can't go wrong if you try to come up with a plural for octopus on your own. I'm always tickled to respond to "if [some quantifiers] people all jump off a cliff, then [some bad things]" with this nicely put XKCD comic: If the cliff moves, it's the ones who stand still who're stupid. Indicating octopuses is the most preferred in the scientific record, whereas octopodes is never used. (3) If your claim is instead that Linnaeus may have done a transliteration from this one (somewhat dubious) substantive usage in a medical treatise, do you have a source for that?
Octopi is a mistaken formation based on interpreting octopus as being constructed using a Latin -us suffix when it is in fact constructed using a Greek -pus suffix. (I guarantee you that somebody will write an answer that asserts that it has attained correctness through usage.
Thus the -iī ending of the resulting word radiī is not a suffix: it is simply the consequence of adding the actual suffix ī to a stem that has an i as its last letter. In Latin, vīrus is generally regarded as a neuter of the second declension, but neuter second declension nouns ending in -us (rather than -um) are rare enough that inferring rules is difficult. (It would be correct if the word was indeed Latin, but it's in fact Greek in origin. It only takes a minute to sign up. Definition and Examples of Agreement in English Grammar, Hypercorrection in Grammar and Pronunciation, Understanding the Types of Nouns in English Grammar, M.Ed., Education Administration, University of Georgia, B.A., History, Armstrong State University. The form viruses appears in the official Scrabble words list,[11] but neither viri nor virii does. Currently, octopuses is the most common form in the UK as well as the US; octopodes is rare, and octopi is often objected to as incorrect.[15]. Some English words derive from Latin idiosyncratically. The collective form octopus is usually reserved for animals consumed for food. Quickest way to test whether array is constant. Some English words of Latin origin do not commonly take the Latin plural, but rather the regular English plurals in -(e)s: campus, bonus, and anus; while others regularly use the Latin forms: radius (radii) and alumnus (alumni). English Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts. The impetus of this discussion was the potential irony that the use of virii could be construed as a claim of superior knowledge of language when in fact more detailed research finds the native viruses is actually more appropriate. The term octopod (plural octopods or octopodes) is taken from the taxonomic order Octopoda but has no classical equivalent. It is the most commonly-accepted plural form of octopus. Prescriptivists consider these forms incorrect, but descriptivists may simply describe them as a natural evolution of language. Octopus, plural octopuses or octopi, in general, any eight-armed cephalopod (octopod) mollusk of the order Octopoda. If the word were native to Latin, it would be octōpēs ('eight-foot') and the plural octōpedēs, analogous to centipedes and mīllipedēs, as the plural form of pēs ('foot') is pedēs. However, the word octopus comes from Greek, and the Greek plural form is octopodes. Some writers use octopi to refer to more than one octopus. Awesome, thanks. (One of the rare attested plurals, pelage as a plural of pelagus, is borrowed from Greek, so does not give guidance for virus.) The true octopuses are members of the genus Octopus , a large group of widely distributed shallow-water cephalopods. However, in computer enthusiast circles in the late 20th century and early 21st, the non-standard viri form (sometimes even virii) was well attested, generally in the context of computer viruses. A few things: (1) Most if not all dictionaries list the word octopus as coined by Linnaeus. (2) If you claim otherwise, do you have a source for the word "octopus" (not ὀκτάπους, but octopus) appearing before Linneaus anywhere? The correct forms are octopuses, octopodes, or octopi. See Terminology of Octopus from Wikipedia. The form vīriī is impossible as a plural of vīrus, since we only find the ending -iī in the plural form of masculine and feminine words ending in -ius. For example, bus is a shortened form of omnibus 'for everyone', the ablative (and dative) plural of omnis, and ignoramus is a verb form, 'we do not know'. [26][27] Conversely, Toyota has also said that the plural of their Lexus line is Lexus.
In English, the plural form of words ending in -us, especially those derived from Latin, often replaces -us with -i. Octopus is a loanword, which means it is a word borrowed from another language.
The Oxford English Dictionary[16] lists octopi, octopuses and octopodes (in that order); it labels octopodes "rare", and notes that octopi derives from the mistaken assumption that octōpūs is a second declension Latin noun. Fowler's Modern English Usage states that "the only acceptable plural in English is octopuses," and that octopi is misconceived and octopodes pedantic.[24]. Aside from the fact that octopi is a familiar plural to many and is indeed listed ahead of octopodes in almost all (if not all) dictionaries, generally following octopuses, there are strong historical reasons why octopodes should be suspect. octopus (plural octopuses or octopusses or octopi or octopodes or octopii) (see usage notes). Octopoids is the plural of octopoid, not octopus. Meaning, pronunciation, picture, example sentences, grammar, usage notes, synonyms and more. See more. Different dictionaries make different recommendations. First off, the word comes from Latin -- if it were Greek, it would be. ), Wikipedia "Plural form of words ending in -us", perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/…, Hot Meta Posts: Allow for removal by moderators, and thoughts about future…, Goodbye, Prettify. What cartoon features a giant origami crane (and possibly a flying bed) brought to life? The plural form of octopus is octopuses (or occasionally octopodes).
Grammatically speaking, the plural for octopus is octopuses.
Once and for all: What's the plural form of “Octopus”? There are three plural forms of octopus: octopuses, octopi, and octopodes. The situation with the word platypus is similar to that of octopus; the word is etymologically Greek despite its Latinized ending, and so pluralizing it as if it were Latin (i.e. In modern Greek, it is called khtapódi (χταπόδι, gender neuter), with plural form khtapódia (χταπόδια). ), (Note: this answer was written for a slightly different question that was merged with the current question, which is why it may seem I was answering oddly.). I contrariwise assert that if ten billion people all jump off a cliff, they're still all stupid. Mass nouns pluralize only under special circumstances, hence the non-existence of plural forms in the texts.[7]. Archiv I.
An octopus is a type of animal. As with octopus, importing Greek morphology into English would have platypodes as the plural, but in practice this form is hardly attested outside of discussions about pluralization. Octopus definition, any octopod of the genus Octopus, having a soft, oval body and eight sucker-bearing arms, living mostly at the bottom of the sea. However, octopods was found in 53 papers[22]. [28] The Winklevoss twins are sometimes collectively referred to as "the Winklevi".