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.