I'm concerned that octopuses are up to something.*
It's well-accepted that certain animals are far more intelligent than we human beings give them credit for. Whales, obviously, some kinds of apes, and dogs for certain, all display character and personality and interests that place them out of the same 'dumb animal' class as, say, armadillos or chipmunks. (Or Kardashians. ZING!!)
Some researchers say cephalopods are the smartest things in the ocean, more so than whales or dolphins. Or maybe even us. Which is the kind of notion that keeps me awake at night. I can recognize a kindred spirit in a dog or a gorilla or a beluga whale, we're all mammals and that's a bonding experience. So it doesn't bother me to think that they're thinking, know what I mean? But an octopus... eight arms, a beak, those creepy, evil eyes like some sort of Nazi geneticist just waiting for the chance to tamper with God's intention... it just ain't right. I imagine going deep-sea diving and getting captured by some octopus Gestapo, tied to an examining table while they flash different colors as they carve bits of me away. Ewww.
The only saving grace is that octopuses have no skeleton, so we got 'em there. They minute they leave the sea they're nothing but a floppy mass of gristle. If they wanted to invade dry land they'd have to come up with some sort of exoskeleton to support their weight, like a giant octopus robot with a seawater-filled clear round dome for their head and two giant mechanical legs and six snakelike slithery arms and a raspy electronic voice whispering hideous evil things...
Oh, great, now I have something new to worry about.
* I know the proper plural is 'octopi,' I used to teach Latin. But octopuses sounds funnier.
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Seems as though octopi is no longer the accepted plural. Who knew?
ReplyDeleteFrom wiki: "The plural form octopi is often defined as a hypercorrection. The Oxford English Dictionary (2008 Draft Revision)[35] lists octopuses, octopi and octopodes (in that order); it labels octopodes "rare", although the correct Greek plural form, and notes that octopi derives from the "apprehension" that octōpūs is a second declension Latin noun, though it is not. It is a Latinization of Greek third-declension masculine oktṓpous (ὀκτώπους, 'eight-foot'), plural oktṓpodes (ὀκτώποδες). If the word were native to Latin, it would be octōpēs, plural octōpedes, after the pattern of pēs ('foot'), plural pedēs, analogous to "centipede".[36] The actual Latin word for octopus and other similar species is polypus, from Greek polýpous (πολύπους, 'many-foot'); usually the inaccurate plural polypī is used instead of polypodēs.
In modern Greek, the word is khtapódi (χταπόδι), plural khtapódia (χταπόδια), from Medieval oktapódion (ὀκταπόδιον), equivalent to Classical oktápous (ὀκτάπους), variant of oktṓpous.
Chambers 21st Century Dictionary[37] and the Compact Oxford Dictionary[38] list only octopuses, although the latter notes that octopodes is "still occasionally used"; the British National Corpus has 29 instances of octopuses, 11 of octopi and 4 of octopodes. Merriam-Webster 11th Collegiate Dictionary lists octopuses and octopi, in that order; Webster's New World College Dictionary lists octopuses, octopi and octopodes (in that order).
Fowler's Modern English Usage states that "the only acceptable plural in English is octopuses," and that octopi is misconceived and octopodes pedantic."
Interesting stuff.