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To: Darren McCarty

For you geeky linguists out there, octopi is not the plural of octopus. Some idiot thought it followed the Latin -us/-i scheme. But it’s a Greek word — so the classical plural is octopodes.


64 posted on 04/20/2008 6:29:49 PM PDT by scrabblehack
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To: scrabblehack

... and not only that, it’s not a classical greek word. I guess they weren’t so concerned about the exact number of tentacles, because they called it the polypous - it’s in Homer, The Odyssey Book 5.432, where it’s written poulypodos. ( A very interesting passage, actually. )

( Any knowledge of greek I may have comes from poking through Homer. )


66 posted on 04/20/2008 8:57:19 PM PDT by dr_lew
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