Many usage debates, I think, are actually debates not just about the overtly contested words (e.g., "fulsome") but also about other words: "is," "should," "correct," "error." One commenter on the split infinitives thread, for instance, writes "It is generally bad form, to be sure, and it should be avoided." What I don't quite grasp here is what "is" and "should" mean here. Does that mean that the word is "bad form" in some objective sense, and should be avoided for some reasons that are in some sense obligatory? Or does it just mean "I don't like it, and I like writing that avoids it"?
Another commenter complains about people's use of "octopi" to mean "octopuses":
My favorite [faux language-police correction] was when I was corrected when referring to "the octopuses" by someone who told me that the correct plural was "octopi."
What makes this faux correction even better is that the split-infinitive police are correcting an acceptable option with another acceptable option. The octopus police are correcting an acceptable option with an error.
"Octopus" is not a Latin root, but a Greek one. A proper Greek plural would be "Look at those octopedes!" "Octopuses" is also correct. "Octopi" is not.
I certainly agree that "octopuses" is a perfectly legitimate plural for "octopus"; and I don't like "octopi," partly for the reasons that the commenter mentions.
But what exactly does "error" or "not" "correct" mean, when used about "octopi"? "Octopi" may well be bad Latin and bad Greek. But according to the English dictionaries that I've consulted, "octopi" is a fully standard English word. It may be grating to some people, because of its air of pedantry that proves to be etymologically ill-grounded pedantry. It may not represent "logical" etymology, though the life of the English language has often not been logical. Yet under what coherent and useful definition of "error" or "correct" can we condemn "octopi" as incorrect or erroneous, rather than merely inelegant?
UPDATE: For those who want more sources, the online Oxford English Dictionary reports for "octopus," "Plural octopuses, octopi, (rare) octopodes." Two of the examples it gives, an 1834 edition of Cuvier's Animal Kingdom XII and a 1942 National Geographic article, use "octopi." My New Shorter Oxford lists "octopi" as well; so does my American Heritage (4th ed.); so does the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary.
While checking still more sources, I have found two contrary ones -- Garner's Modern American Usage calls use of "octopi" "mistaken[]," and the New Fowler's Modern English Usage says it is not "acceptable" and is "misconceived." Webster's Dictionary of Modern English Usage, on the other hand, doesn't condemn octopi. The majority (though not unanimous) view from the sources that I've consulted, then, supports octopi as an acceptable plural, and it's hard for me to see why the usage listed in the OED, the American Heritage, and the Cambridge would be "wrong."
Related Posts (on one page):
- Octopodes:
- Fulsome:
- More from the Language Police:
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Prof. Volokh,
My source is the Oxford English Dictionary in my office. While the complete one is not free online, the Compact OED's entry is linked to here, and verifies my claim. I quote in full:
octopus
• noun (pl. octopuses) a mollusc with eight sucker-bearing arms, a soft body, beak-like jaws, and no internal shell.
— DERIVATIVES octopoid adjective.
— USAGE The standard plural in English of octopus is octopuses. However, since the word comes from Greek, the Greek plural form octopodes is still occasionally used. The plural form octopi, formed according to rules for Latin plurals, is incorrect.
— ORIGIN Greek, from okto ‘eight’ + pous ‘foot’.
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To the extent your dictionary lists "octopi" as acceptable, I can only hold on to the authority of the OED and claim your dictionary is wrong.
"sneak
• verb (past and past part. sneaked or informal, chiefly N. Amer. snuck)"
The OED gives a half-hearted endorsement to "snuck." "Octopi", however, is "incorrect."
For what its worth, I actually like the way “octopodes” sounds, at least more than I like the way “octopi” or “octopuses” sound (personally I’ve always thought that “octopus” should be a word like “moose,” that is, a word that is both the singular and plural (I’m using “should” in a purely subjective sense)).
Also, Eugene, I agree with you that there is nothing inherently wrong with split infinitives, I was wondering what your feelings were on whether the use of the passive voice ought to, as a general rule, be avoided. I, for one, think that people often object to the use of the passive voice in situations where it is completely appropriate (for instance, “be avoided” in the previous sentence.
So no, there is just no reasonable criterion for "correctness" other than what the people you're talking to will understand as "correct" (or better, understand as being correctly written in the register and tone you want your writing to have). And no, citing the OED doesn't get you anywhere. The OED's own stated purpose is not to prescribe correct usage but "to provide a record of how the English language is and has been used in writing and in speech." Its conclusory statement about what's "correct" can't trump the fact that "octopi" gets almost as many Google hits as "octopuses" and way, way more than "octopodes."
The greek/latin hybrid velocimetry remains a popular word particularly when measuring the velocity of something other than air.
Our objective, though, should be to boldly go where medieval grammarians feared to tread.
Use of the passive voice, which should ordinarily be avoided, is useful in cases where you want to bring the object of the sentence up front, where it'll be noticed.
Please send me an octopus.
Sincerely yours
P.S. While you are at it, send another one.
You said that the use of the passive voice “should ordinarily be avoided,” and I realize that this is the conventional wisdom, but my question is why? As far as I know, the two most commonly given reasons are (1) that the active voice makes the writing more forceful (or livelier, or more persuasive), and (2) that use of the active voice usually makes the sentence shorter (and thus clearer).
As for (1), this seems like a matter of opinion, for instance, I don’t see why “writers should ordinarily avoid the passive voice” is necessarily more forceful or lively than “the passive voice should ordinarily be avoided by writers.” It seems like a matter of aesthetic preference, rather than a descriptive psychological fact, to say that one phrasing is more forceful or persuasive than the other.
As for (2), at least this is an empirical assertion (that it is generally shorter, clarity seems to be a matter of preference/opinion just like forcefulness). However, it does not seem to me that this is necessarily true. Use of the passive voice often allows you to drop the subject all together, and if the subject cannot be mentioned in one or two short words, then it is often shorter to use the passive voice (of course it may be the case that most of the time the subject of a sentence can be mentioned in one or two words, but this is clearly not always the case).
Of course, there are instances where using the passive voice will make a sentence awkward or cumbersome, but the same is true of split infinitives (as Professor Volokh pointed out in the split infinitive thread), either way, it is a problem with that particular usage, not with the passive voice per se.
Now that we have introduced, at least in principle, an artificial linguistic standard, it's only natural that people fight for control over it -- people criticise or shout down the interpretations that deviate from their preferred standard. Just as with the principles lawyers invoke to guide interpretation or formulation of the law, there are even various rules people will invoke to determine a "correct" definition or grammatical rule (theirs). Etymology is one example (as with octopus => octopodes). Historical use is another. Yet another -- one that is falling out of use somewhat -- is analogy to classical models. My understanding is that the split infinitive rule was derived from Latin, where infinitives simply cannot be split, because they are just another verb form.
Unlike the law (or at least, the law in ideal form -- reality may diverge from the ideal somewhat), there are not really agreed-upon rules for determining what goes into making up the standard form of the language. Other countries have the Academie Francaise, and the like, I suppose, which alleviates the problem somewhat. But we haven't.
To be a pedant on a pedantic thread: "o sia" actually means "or else" - an emphasized exclusive "or". "Sia" being the third person singular present conjunctive of "essere" - to be - hence, something like "or be it". This was frequently used in 18/19th century to give a dual title to a piece work, e.g., in more than one Italian opera by Mozart (Don Giovanni, Cosi Fan Tutte, etc.). Same in Spanish with "o sea".
Quite right, of course. The "thus" was me attempting to make "or be it" look like a phrase in the English language. Look what trouble we get into when we attempt elegance!
And you're right: "O sia" is standard for dual-titled Italian operas, but "ossia" becane the standard for the usage I was describing. I don't know why the duplicated "s," but you see the same thing in "ovvere" (= "o vere"), which I've seen only in 19th-c. Italian opera.
PersonFromPorlock,
Technically a pidgin stops being a pidgin after one generation. When it is taught to a subsequent generation, as that generation’s first language it becomes a creole language. Thus, English cannot be called a pidgin, though you might call it a creole (although I believe the whole concept of creole and pidgin languages didn’t actually come into being until the middle ages, and English—though certainly not modern American English—was already well established by then, so I don’t think either term really makes sense when applied to English).
I don't know why the duplicated "s," but you see the same thing in "ovvere" (= "o vere")
Italian is just fond of double consonants and especially when joining two words with the first ending in a vowel: davvero, dappertutto, and even preposition-article combinations - dalla, alle, dello.
Of course, "octopedes" is wrong, too, as a plural for "octopus." Octopede or Octoped would be the Latin-derived word for an eight-footed animal, as a centipede is "hundred-footed" and a millipede is "thousand-footed." A spider would be an octopede (as would an octopus)
Why do we think octopuses have feet anyway?
The British Isles were populated with Celtic-speaking people during the Roman era. The later Germanic invasions supplanted the local language with Anglo-Saxon and other dialects. Although there have been many linguistic imports, English retains a Germanic grammar.
Language does change over time with usage and foreign contact. The long term trend in English has been toward loss of inflection and simplification of rules. The trend would lead me to believe octopi and octopodes will eventually be dropped (except by the pesky Latinates).
Perhaps this explains why English, as modified by Germanic influences and a later dose of French, is still ideal for haggling with whores. (Or with soldiers, depending on your perspective.)
split without seeming to cause any problems.
Doc Brown from the Back to the Future trilogy pronounced "gigawatt" with the g of gigantic. Recently, when watching a rerun on TV, I laughed at his "incorrect" pronunciation due to my exposure to the common pronunciations of gigabyte and gigahertz.
Also, why is the last "i" in the Gemini space program pronouced like a long "e", but most people pronounce the Zodiac sign gem-in-eye?
And in "oppure," which is an everyday conversational word in Italian.
For what its worth, Infinitives are routinely in German
split without seeming to cause any problems.
Actually, if you mean splitting of separable prefixes/prepositions in German (and putting them, irritatingly, at the end of the sentence) this is done for various forms of verbs but not infinitive. If, however, you mean the partial equivalent of "to" - "zu" it is not splittable but also used only in certain situations. In English, on the other hand, the particle-indicator is obligatory (except after select modal verbs). It's almost unique this way, except for Romanian, where incidentally the corresponding particle is not splittable.
But I agree that splitting does not cause problems with communication and indeed could add shades of meaning (see e.g., the Wikipedia item on the topic).
Then there is the old joke about the zoo director who could not remember a certain plural, so he wrote, "Please send us a hippopotamus. As long as you are doing it, please send us a second one, too."
I'm pretty sure it is incorrect. The "giga" of gigabyte comes from the same root as "gigantic," but as a more recent Greco-latinate adoption, it's pronounced as a stop, rather than an affricate. That root is gigas, -gantes, m., meaning a giant. At least, in Latin that's what it is. It's a Greek borrowing, and I don't know how to write (or pronounce) the original Greek.
One wonders the correct method of resolving a dispute such as this one (of which there are probably are better examples) where half of the resources claim that a form is acceptable, and the other half say that it is incorrect.
Does "wrong" require 100% consensus? Assumedly, there was a first source who shifted from "this is wrong" to "this is acceptable." At that moment, did every other dictionary/ usage guide become wrong, under the theory of "How can you say it is wrong, when Respected Dictionary X says it is acceptable?"
That gives too much veto power to the outlier, but the answer would have to lie at somewhere less than 50%, I would think.
I will only partially concede, and say that while my anecdote may have a different balance of the equities now, at the time of the actual incident (being corrected from octopuses to octopi), the weight of authority was different that it is now (with the OED not yet accepting 'octopi'), and 'octopi' was not acceptable.
My greatest fear, in fact, is that my conversation was overhead by an OED editor, who included it as an example in his latest revision, to demonstrate that 'octopi' is correct.
Interesting is the OED's list of new additions (June 15, 2006), which includes some newish words (dotcom, cybrarian, Google), some words that seem odd to add at this late date, because they're probably on their way down (Walter Mittyish), and a goodly number of words that were probably corrected by pedants on June 14 (close-caption, infantilize). And Yada yada.
"Compact OED and my hard copy (purchased in 1999) list it as incorrect."
Do they, in fact, list it as "incorrect," or do they simply not list it as an option? There's a significant logical difference between the two.
Was the use of the passive voice in this sentence deliberate?
Apparently I have been not making myself clear. The quote above (in Comment #2 to this thread) is a direct quote from the Compact Oxford English Dictionary. The language of my hard copy is identical. It may be fact-checked at the following web page:
http://130.88.203.109/concise_oed/octopus?view=uk
It is not silent at all on the issue of 'octopi', but explicitly states:
" — USAGE The standard plural in English of octopus is octopuses. However, since the word comes from Greek, the Greek plural form octopodes is still occasionally used. The plural form octopi, formed according to rules for Latin plurals, is incorrect."
While I do not have access to the full online OED, I will take Professor Volokh's word (in his update) for what it states, and simply point out that the online Compact OED directly contradicts (is not merely silent compared to) the non-Compact edition.
Angels on the head of a pin. There is no cosmic answer to whether a usage is "wrong." If authorities describing current usage disagree, that's a good signal that it will strike a fair number of people within a general audience as an incorrect usage. If that bothers you, don't use it. If it doesn't bother you, use it. Why wouldn't it bother you? Well, maybe because what you care about is (1) being deemed correct by some subset such as "old-fasioned grammar stickers" or (2) being aesthetically pleased with your own style. Nothing wrong with either of those. But beyond that sort of pragmatic choice, I don't know what "resolving [the] dispute" could possibly mean.
I'm convinced this arose by false analogy to the plurals of words taken from Greek (basis/bases; analysis/analyses). I couldn't care less (note to self: when you become Ruler of All Earth, do something about people who unironically say "I could care less") whether you say the word as "PROH-sess" or "PRAH-sess," but in the name of all that is holy, don't say process-EEZ. Pleez.
Q: "Why didn't you guys do a better job on this project? I gave your team money for it! What happened to it?"
A: "It was wasted."
I guess the classic example, actually, is our 40th president: "Mistakes were made."
Hey, gang, in 1L, was it ration-AL or ration-AY-lee? Has Harvard won or not?
Of course, sometimes ambiguity is useful. Where it is not intended, however, it can be bad diction to deliberately avoid splitting the infinitive.
Quitre a thorough discussion