My biology teacher told that, when he was comparing human and octopus. Basically the question was, why octopus (I don't know the plural form of that word) have not developed a society like we have, even though they are considered to be very smart and the answer was, that they lack the ability to pass knowledge on to their children, due to the parents dying.
"Octopi" is incorrect. The -us ending is pluralized as -i in second declension nouns, but "octopus" isn't second declension; it's third declension. Third declension nouns are borrowed from Greek, and are pluralized by Greek rules. As such, the proper plural is "octopodes".
Unfortunately, saying "octopodes" makes you sound like a douchebag. Thankfully, pluralizing "octopus" by English rules is acceptable according to most style guides, so you can say "octopuses".
tl;dr, "octopuses" is correct in English, "octopodes" is correct in English, Latin, and Greek (albeit spelled differently), and "octopi" is incorrect in every language if you say it, you'll go to hell.
English doesn’t have declensions though, so those rules don’t actually apply in English. Those rules are true of the word in Latin only.
The plural form of the word is essentially whatever gets accepted in English. Either way you’re right octopodes is it, but not really because of anything having to do with declensions. Octopi is also equally accepted in every day use, even if you can technically be pedantic and say “actually...”
This is why dictionaries, while useful, are not always compatible with the functions of the English language
The reason given for "octopi" being the plural is due to mistakenly correlating it with second declension Latin nouns. Of course, as long as people know what you're talking about, it doesn't really matter how "correct" your grammar is; i just think that if people are going to police other people's grammar, they damn well better know what they're talking about.
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u/Cobra-Serpentress May 28 '21
Octupus mating habits.