I got yer plural right here

[xthe10thdoctor]

I read a couple of days ago that the only acceptable English plural of "octopus" is "octopuses," and that "octopi" is incorrect and "octopodes" misguided. I believe I have found a solution: more than one octopus is an "octoposse."

Comments

[uitlander]

Octopoda actually.

The old senior tutor's life's work was a study of their sex lives. Her paper in Nature on the first observation of gay octopodia going at it with tentacles everywhere did cause some degree of sputtering when I first encountered it. Not at all what you expect from a very formal lady with a steel blue rinse.

Edited due to typo.

[mrslant]

Outside the technical scientific context, I'd adopt the usual procedure for third-declension Greek and Latin nouns of taking the stem and adding the English plural in -s, hence octopods, cf. arthropods, gastropods, cephalopods, etc.

[heronymus-waat.livejournal.com]

I'm in the "octopoda" or "octopodes" family myself, but I'm totally going to switch to octoposse now.

Just because I want to see the look on faces when I say it out loud and everyone mis-hears me.

[esmeraldus-neo.livejournal.com]

And octoposse comitatus is the power of a sheriff to conscript any able-bodied plural of octopus for law-enforcement purposes.

[cat63.livejournal.com]

[snerk!]

And now I have a mental image of an octopus in a stetson rounding up cattle using one of his tentacles as a lassoo....

[randombler.livejournal.com]

In octopus-related news, octoposses have been found to be tool users:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8408233.stm

[naxela.livejournal.com]

English is a living language! I'm using "octoposse"

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

Merriam-Webster, which is sort of the dictionary of default for New York trade* publishing, prefers "octopuses" but also lists "octopi", which is mock-Latin but real English.

*As opposed to specialty publishing, like medical journals.

Octoposse would be the power of cephalopods. Feer it!