• acargitz@lemmy.caEnglish
    5·
    6 days ago

    As a native greek speaker, I find anything other than “octopuses” to be silly. In greek we don’t say (any more) octopodes, we say “chtapodia” (the “ch” is the canonical (ELOT) transliteration of the letter χ).

    • fibojoly@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2·
      6 days ago

      Could you just clarify one thing? I was told that the plural wouldn’t be octopodes, but octopoda, similarly to what you used for modern Greek.

      • acargitz@lemmy.caEnglish
        2·
        5 days ago

        In modern Greek, singular: χταπόδι, plural: χταπόδια.

        Transliterated using standard ELOT (that maps χ to ch) singular: chtapodi, plural: chtapodia.

        The word is composite and contracted. First part originally is οχτώ (8) (transliteration: ochto) but has been uncommonly shortened to χτα (chta). Second part is the word for foot (singular: πόδι/podi, plural: πόδια/podia).

        So without the uncommon shortening in more archaic Greek it would be: οχταπόδι (ochtapodi) and οχταπόδια (ochtapodia).

        If ELOT is ignored and οχτώ is transliterated as octo, then you can get to octapodi, octapodia.

  • MithranArkanere@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    6 days ago

    Level 10: all forms are valid as long as enough people use them. The currently most used forms are octopuses and octopi, both valid, but octopi is malformed, so octopuses is preferred. Octopussses and octopii and rare variants of those. Also correct, but rarely used.
    Octopodes is also correct, but considered pedantic.

    Level 11: Just use what you are used to.

  • Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyzEnglish
    2·
    6 days ago

    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 a cat’s”.

  • megopie@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    21·
    6 days ago

    Octopodes, pronounced oc-top-o-dees, not oc-to-po-des. Like Hercules.

    Also, using the I ending to pluralize us endings comes out of an attempted prescriptive reform of English in the late 1800s to make it more like Latin. We still use es endings to pluralize us singulars most of the time, the places where we use I are ether direct usages of Latin words or remnants of that prescriptive push.

  • Dharma Curious (he/him)@slrpnk.netEnglish
    80·
    7 days ago

    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

    • dropcase@lemmy.worldEnglish
      46·
      7 days ago

      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!”

    • HamsterRage@lemmy.caEnglish
      151·
      7 days ago

      For decades now, my wife and I have used “Kleeni” as the plural of “Kleenex”.

          • Tortellinius@lemmy.worldEnglish
            4·
            6 days ago

            It’s hard to tell because the deviating form in Latin is actually the nominative singular, which is why vocab lists include the genitive singular as well. All other forms have the same stem aside from Nom. Sg. A few examples are:

            senex - senēs (elder)

            rēx - rēgēs (king)

            index - indīcēs (index)

            So really anything could work as long as it ends on -ēs in plural and starts with kleen-.

            • Venia Silente@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              1·
              2 days ago

              Well, Latin really is weird but it allows for quite some fun stuff then!

              So really anything could work as long as it ends on -ēs in plural and starts with kleen-.

              Let’s try this:

              Kleenussies is valid, then?

              • Tortellinius@lemmy.worldEnglish
                1·
                2 days ago

                Haha! It would be unconventional to use a double s in any form aside from the s-perfect, which is the time form of a verb, the superlative forms of adjective, or beyond the first two syllables. After a bit of research an accurate word would be either a g, k, or a c (all formed in approx. the same area of the mouth as x) instead of the x followed by the -ēs. Trying to pronounce Kleenex with an i before the g, k or c sounds less like Kleenex than index sounds similar to indices. The transition from a vibrating sound like the n to an i also feels unnatural at that part of a word, normally it comes after a t or a d sound. Also the name itself stems from the verb “to clean” and the latin suffix -ex. If it suggests something like a “cleaning king” the resulting word could therefore be Kleenegēs, but Kleenecēs is not off the table.

                However, my initial suggestion is inaccurate. The senex-style plural (Kleenēs) is a special case of which it ism’t resolved why senex drops its -x entirely on flexation.