Sure we do, on occasion anyway. Cacti, fungi, alumni, syllabi, loci, foci, radii, moduli, stimuli, uteri, papyri, nuclei, termini.
Language isn’t about being “correct”, as there’s no truly objective standard. Rather, it’s about being understood. But I guess you didn’t watch that video.
Every single plural you list is derived straight from latin. If you created a neologism for a previously non-existent concept you would pluralize it with “s” in English eg email becomes emails not emali. The “i” as a plural is only for words taken straight from Latin.
I watched it. I don’t place any value on youtube videos made by people speaking outside their expertise.
We don’t use it in English. We just retain the latin plural for Latin words. We don’t use Latin plurals for Greek words that use a different standard for pluralization.
You made an appeal to authority when you provided the Steven Fry video. Fry is not by any standard an expert on the English language or linguistics. He is an actor and he has written non-academic pieces that are not on linguistics.
There’s no reason to roll your eyes when someone rejects your non-expert source as it is an appeal to authority.
That gets down to what you mean by “acceptable”. Octopi is not a natural derivation of octopus as the plural is octopodes just like “aint” is not a natural derivation of any form of the verb “is” BUT in both aint and octopi’s case most understand those words so they might be acceptable depending.
octopodes
or octopi,I mean octopuses is correct too, but less fun
octopi is wrong because octopus is Greek and not latin
Yeah but we’re using English which doesn’t follow Greek spelling rules.
Also, this.
And that’s why octopuses is correct. Octopi is not a derivation of octopus nor do we use “i” as a plural ending in English.
Sure we do, on occasion anyway. Cacti, fungi, alumni, syllabi, loci, foci, radii, moduli, stimuli, uteri, papyri, nuclei, termini.
Language isn’t about being “correct”, as there’s no truly objective standard. Rather, it’s about being understood. But I guess you didn’t watch that video.
Every single plural you list is derived straight from latin. If you created a neologism for a previously non-existent concept you would pluralize it with “s” in English eg email becomes emails not emali. The “i” as a plural is only for words taken straight from Latin.
I watched it. I don’t place any value on youtube videos made by people speaking outside their expertise.
Sure, but we use it. We adopted those words without altering that form. You said we don’t use it in English, full stop, so I gave 13 counterexamples.
I don’t think my eyes can roll any harder.
We don’t use it in English. We just retain the latin plural for Latin words. We don’t use Latin plurals for Greek words that use a different standard for pluralization.
You made an appeal to authority when you provided the Steven Fry video. Fry is not by any standard an expert on the English language or linguistics. He is an actor and he has written non-academic pieces that are not on linguistics.
There’s no reason to roll your eyes when someone rejects your non-expert source as it is an appeal to authority.
I prefer the original, more correct, “octopizzle.”
TIL: I thought it was acceptable
That gets down to what you mean by “acceptable”. Octopi is not a natural derivation of octopus as the plural is octopodes just like “aint” is not a natural derivation of any form of the verb “is” BUT in both aint and octopi’s case most understand those words so they might be acceptable depending.