One of my favorite things in life is using Latin or Greek plurals on words that it makes absolutely no sense to use them on, and do not follow the rules of any language naturally involved.
I had steak and potati for dinner last night. Just one steak, though, I cannot eat multiple steakices
It's hard to tell because the deviating form in Latin is actually the nominative singular, which is why vocab lists include the genitive singular as well. All other forms have the same stem aside from Nom. Sg. A few examples are:
senex - senēs (elder)
rēx - rēgēs (king)
index - indīcēs (index)
So really anything could work as long as it ends on -ēs in plural and starts with kleen-.
Haha! It would be unconventional to use a double s in any form aside from the s-perfect, which is the time form of a verb, the superlative forms of adjective, or beyond the first two syllables. After a bit of research an accurate word would be either a g, k, or a c (all formed in approx. the same area of the mouth as x) instead of the x followed by the -ēs. Trying to pronounce Kleenex with an i before the g, k or c sounds less like Kleenex than index sounds similar to indices. The transition from a vibrating sound like the n to an i also feels unnatural at that part of a word, normally it comes after a t or a d sound. Also the name itself stems from the verb "to clean" and the latin suffix -ex. If it suggests something like a "cleaning king" the resulting word could therefore be Kleenegēs, but Kleenecēs is not off the table.
However, my initial suggestion is inaccurate. The senex-style plural (Kleenēs) is a special case of which it ism't resolved why senex drops its -x entirely on flexation.
This is true for the scientific sense that it's order Octopoda (e.g. the plural for members of Hexapoda is "hexapods" and likewise "decapods" for Decapoda), but then it's kind of like saying the plural for "lobster" is "nephropids". The names are close for Octopoda and octopus, but it's still taking the colloquial name and pluralizing it into its scientific name. It's not specifically "to bring it in line with cephalopod"; that's just how generic names of members of taxa ending in 'poda' work generally.
Strictly speaking, "octopods" is the plural of "octopod".
Putting aside the technicalities (it is not language that is prescriptive or descriptive, but linguistics), that's a widespread position among perfectly literate people, including professional linguists. Nothing to do with the number of "likes".
Sure, languages evolve I guess but this isn't really that IMO.
The whole idea of etymology is that you can figure out what a word means from its roots. If you throw all that out, you give up the scaffolding that makes words make any sense. Same goes for grammatical rules. It seems like the argument for descriptivism is "let's not be elitist when people become less competent with the rules of a language", and while that's a fine ideal, yer usin ma words wrong!
I suspect there is also a body of professional linguists who oppose your point for the same reasons.
The whole idea of etymology is that you can figure out what a word means from its roots.
That was the idea in ancient Greece when the name of the endavour/field was created (etymon = "true"). In the 19th century when linguistics became a serious science it was effectively becoming abandoned, and quite clearly criticised by 20th century linguists. Words' meanings and forms shift inevitably, they've always been shifting, and trying to pick one single stage of this process as the right one is basically like saying that the earth is flat because from any individual vantage point it looks flat to you.
If you throw all that out, you give up the scaffolding that makes words make any sense.
No, you don't. 99% of people don't know the etymology of 99% of the words they use. Not even linguists have definitive answers for the etymology of words such as 'boy' and 'dog'. Words' meanings are actually established by usage, by tradition as it's handed down to us, with some leeway in how we accept and modify the tradition. (These mechanisms of language change are many and affect various levels of language.) Note that cultures that don't have scientific etymology still have perfectly functional languages.
It seems like the argument for descriptivism is “let’s not be elitist when people become less competent with the rules of a language”
That's one of the arguments, but as you can see I don't think it's crucial.
I suspect there is also a body of professional linguists who oppose your point for the same reasons.
There are some professional linguists who are active as prescriptivists. Their number varies depending on the country, in Anglophone countries their number is miniscule. In countries with a more pronounced prescriptivist tradition (as in mine, I'm from Croatia) their number declines through time as academia accepts and integrates modern linguistic theories, and the remaining prescriptivists' positions soften. And I can't help but notice that many of the current prescriptivists are shoddy linguists and ideologically motivated (elitists, conservatives).
The prescriptivists are actually quite thin on the justifications for their approach. They won't theoretically or empirically defend prescriptivism, arguments for it amount to vague and unscientific claims of a need for order and clarity in language (which exist regardless of prescriptivist intervention), and such stuff. But even they usually don't dare to go so far as to claim etymology is the source of correct meanings, because they know that holding such a position would immediately lead into absurdity and extremism. Leaf through an etymological dictionary and try to stick to the oldest meaning described there. You'll quickly realise that the source of correct meanings can't be the words and forms from 500, 1000, or 4000 years ago. In fact, I've seen prescriptivists attack usage that's been around for centuries, or demand people follow semantic distinctions between words or constructions that never existed at all.
A book recommendation, if you're interested: L. Bauer and P. Trudgill, Language Myths.
I am not suggesting by the way that words should never change in meaning. Rather, I don't think that the default mode shouldn't be "ah well whatever, let's just add a new colloquial definition". The dictionary can chase language, but maybe it shouldn't go at exactly the same pace that people say things on tik tok.
I came across a word I had never seen before this week in a book I'm reading ("schismogenesis" which is apparently a common word in anthropology, but not for engineering) and I immediately had a working definition. This is the reward for learning to me. I have another friend who did similar schooling and he is of the opinion that knowing "$5 words" is stupid and is reading the same book as part of our book club. I can't imagine what it must be like for him to read a book and constantly feel like all you're getting is the gist. The dumbing down of language eliminates nuance because the real depth doesn't come at the 4th grade reading level it feels like descriptivism wants to sink to.
I don't like flattening out language to meet the least common denominator.
I'm a bit late with this reply, but oh well... It seems to me that you equate your acquaintance's position with actual linguistic descriptivism. But no, what he and you show is just different preferences and/or normative relationships towards language. Descriptivism (as in, the position that should be taken by a serious linguist) absolutely does not want to "flatten" language, it does not take a normative position, though it can/should criticise normative positions that are unavoidably based on unscientific notions. Those can include preference for "simple" language. Dictionaries don't follow what's going on at TikTok, so that's just a non-issue.
Like, imagine a Christian talking with an atheist, and calling the atheist a Satanist. This is the same sort of mistake.
You are free to enjoy books with one sort of vocabulary, he's free to enjoy books with an another sort of vocabulary. This is more of a matter of aesthetics, which we could also discuss, but I'd prefer to leave that aside or we'll have to write even further walls of text.
On a very fundamental level, the scaffolding that makes words make sense is the neuron structures in your brain which fire when they recognize certain sounds/scribbles. Things like etymology and grammar are not necessary for a language to be used for communication (in fact, languages existed for much longer than the notions of etymology or grammar). Both of them help make the language more standardized and thus more understandable, but they are not required - you can totally make yourself understood without knowing about either of those things.
Spanish from Spain has an official dictionary that dictates what is correct and isn't. You can't be more prescriptive than that. Sure, that dictionary adds words based on usage, even ones that are clear misspellings of the "real" word, but they are marked as so.
The RAE is not a prescriptive institution at all. They fight people on social media over that. They're not shaming anyone for spelling a word different, just describing what the language users are doing.
As a native greek speaker, I find anything other than "octopuses" to be silly. In greek we don't say (any more) octopodes, we say "chtapodia" (the "ch" is the canonical (ELOT) transliteration of the letter χ).
In modern Greek, singular: χταπόδι, plural: χταπόδια.
Transliterated using standard ELOT (that maps χ to ch) singular: chtapodi, plural: chtapodia.
The word is composite and contracted. First part originally is οχτώ (8) (transliteration: ochto) but has been uncommonly shortened to χτα (chta). Second part is the word for foot (singular: πόδι/podi, plural: πόδια/podia).
So without the uncommon shortening in more archaic Greek it would be: οχταπόδι (ochtapodi) and οχταπόδια (ochtapodia).
If ELOT is ignored and οχτώ is transliterated as octo, then you can get to octapodi, octapodia.
Level 10: all forms are valid as long as enough people use them. The currently most used forms are octopuses and octopi, both valid, but octopi is malformed, so octopuses is preferred. Octopussses and octopii and rare variants of those. Also correct, but rarely used.
Octopodes is also correct, but considered pedantic.
It would only work the other way around. If english grammar dictates that a loan word's original language grammar be used. Aka level 1 includes level 3. You cannot just throw some other languages grammar at english however you please
Oxen is historically a 100% English plural, just like child-children, it wasn't loaned. (I should check, but I'm pretty sure it's the same -en as in German plurals: das Auge, die Augen.)
Some of these Latin plurals can survive for technical terminology. But it's pretty much only Latin ones, due to the historical prestige. Nobody talks of Soviet apparatchiki, it's apparatchiks.
Octopus is an English word so it is perfectly correct to pluralise it as octopuses. To use octopi is definitely wrong (it's the wrong foreign pluralisation), octopodes is using an uncommon foreign pluralisation so it's not wrong, just non standard
Octopodes, pronounced oc-top-o-dees, not oc-to-po-des. Like Hercules.
Also, using the I ending to pluralize us endings comes out of an attempted prescriptive reform of English in the late 1800s to make it more like Latin. We still use es endings to pluralize us singulars most of the time, the places where we use I are ether direct usages of Latin words or remnants of that prescriptive push.
One of my favorite things in life is using Latin or Greek plurals on words that it makes absolutely no sense to use them on, and do not follow the rules of any language naturally involved.
I had steak and potati for dinner last night. Just one steak, though, I cannot eat multiple steakices
Reminds me of a joke:
A Roman soldier walks into a bar and says, "I'll have a martinus"
Bartender says, "don't you mean a martini?"
The Roman says. "if I wanted more than one I would've asked for it!"
I also do this! My personal top 3 are:
Jesus - Jesi
Bus - Bi
Penis - Penorum
WROOOOONG! Now write the full declension table on that wall. And make sure to draw some pictures with it, so you never forget the word! :-p
People called Romanes, they go, the house?!
It's the genitive! Genitive! Which makes the plural.. um! Penum! Penum! Romanorum penum amplitudines non magni sunt!
c===3, c===3, c===3.
Poetry was made today.
I have a wealthy friend who has a penorium in their house.
Do you happen to have a picture? Asking for a friend.
Unfortunately the last time I was invited I got kicked out. Got a little too excited.
Also they don't allow phones, so I couldn't take a picture.
For decades now, my wife and I have used "Kleeni" as the plural of "Kleenex".
Kleenex is Kneenes according to the rules of Latin, actually
But the plural of index is indices in Latin, so shouldn't the plural of Kleenex under those rules be Kleenices?
It's hard to tell because the deviating form in Latin is actually the nominative singular, which is why vocab lists include the genitive singular as well. All other forms have the same stem aside from Nom. Sg. A few examples are:
senex - senēs (elder)
rēx - rēgēs (king)
index - indīcēs (index)
So really anything could work as long as it ends on -ēs in plural and starts with kleen-.
Well, Latin really is weird but it allows for quite some fun stuff then!
Let's try this:
Kleenussies is valid, then?
Haha! It would be unconventional to use a double s in any form aside from the s-perfect, which is the time form of a verb, the superlative forms of adjective, or beyond the first two syllables. After a bit of research an accurate word would be either a g, k, or a c (all formed in approx. the same area of the mouth as x) instead of the x followed by the -ēs. Trying to pronounce Kleenex with an i before the g, k or c sounds less like Kleenex than index sounds similar to indices. The transition from a vibrating sound like the n to an i also feels unnatural at that part of a word, normally it comes after a t or a d sound. Also the name itself stems from the verb "to clean" and the latin suffix -ex. If it suggests something like a "cleaning king" the resulting word could therefore be Kleenegēs, but Kleenecēs is not off the table.
However, my initial suggestion is inaccurate. The senex-style plural (Kleenēs) is a special case of which it ism't resolved why senex drops its -x entirely on flexation.
Looks like you beat us to level 7
Its whatever your heart is telling you.
Four Loko was the start and eventual downfall of many wild and ultimately regrettable times.
I tried it before they banned caffeinated alcohol here and holy fuck that shit was chaos in a can
Yeah, that is an accurate description. A couple four loko could make your evening into a Fear and Loathing style event worthy of legend.
And if folks knew what you meant, it's fine
Any mistake I make is actually just my dialect
Don't bother correcting my English grammar, as I have no respect for this language <3
That is what 'descriptive' in level 4 means
2π: two pi
π: one pus
Octopoden!
There were manny of them! Manny much octopoden!
American English: "All of the above are valid."
"Even 'octopussies?'"
American English: "...sure."
"even 'octopussies'?"
american english:
Search engines: Sir, this is a work computer
Just researching adaptations of classic literature.
Aham, there's some precedent
There is a difference in Octopussys here. One is slippery, the other is not.
This is true for the scientific sense that it's order Octopoda (e.g. the plural for members of Hexapoda is "hexapods" and likewise "decapods" for Decapoda), but then it's kind of like saying the plural for "lobster" is "nephropids". The names are close for Octopoda and octopus, but it's still taking the colloquial name and pluralizing it into its scientific name. It's not specifically "to bring it in line with cephalopod"; that's just how generic names of members of taxa ending in 'poda' work generally.
Strictly speaking, "octopods" is the plural of "octopod".
Once I learned that “octopodes” is pronounced oct-TOP-o-dees not OCT-uh-pohds it became my pluralization of choice.
Octopodes nuts
I hadn't even thought about that, it makes total since being derived from Greek. I am now fully on team octopodes.
Octopodes nuts
2 octopus = 1 hexadecipus
4 Quadropus = 8 bipus
Student: "language is prescriptive not descriptive"
Teacher: "you fail 3rd grade spelling"
And I absolutely support keeping people back who believe English should be guided and evolved through "Likes".
Putting aside the technicalities (it is not language that is prescriptive or descriptive, but linguistics), that's a widespread position among perfectly literate people, including professional linguists. Nothing to do with the number of "likes".
Sure, languages evolve I guess but this isn't really that IMO.
The whole idea of etymology is that you can figure out what a word means from its roots. If you throw all that out, you give up the scaffolding that makes words make any sense. Same goes for grammatical rules. It seems like the argument for descriptivism is "let's not be elitist when people become less competent with the rules of a language", and while that's a fine ideal, yer usin ma words wrong!
I suspect there is also a body of professional linguists who oppose your point for the same reasons.
That was the idea in ancient Greece when the name of the endavour/field was created (etymon = "true"). In the 19th century when linguistics became a serious science it was effectively becoming abandoned, and quite clearly criticised by 20th century linguists. Words' meanings and forms shift inevitably, they've always been shifting, and trying to pick one single stage of this process as the right one is basically like saying that the earth is flat because from any individual vantage point it looks flat to you.
No, you don't. 99% of people don't know the etymology of 99% of the words they use. Not even linguists have definitive answers for the etymology of words such as 'boy' and 'dog'. Words' meanings are actually established by usage, by tradition as it's handed down to us, with some leeway in how we accept and modify the tradition. (These mechanisms of language change are many and affect various levels of language.) Note that cultures that don't have scientific etymology still have perfectly functional languages.
That's one of the arguments, but as you can see I don't think it's crucial.
There are some professional linguists who are active as prescriptivists. Their number varies depending on the country, in Anglophone countries their number is miniscule. In countries with a more pronounced prescriptivist tradition (as in mine, I'm from Croatia) their number declines through time as academia accepts and integrates modern linguistic theories, and the remaining prescriptivists' positions soften. And I can't help but notice that many of the current prescriptivists are shoddy linguists and ideologically motivated (elitists, conservatives).
The prescriptivists are actually quite thin on the justifications for their approach. They won't theoretically or empirically defend prescriptivism, arguments for it amount to vague and unscientific claims of a need for order and clarity in language (which exist regardless of prescriptivist intervention), and such stuff. But even they usually don't dare to go so far as to claim etymology is the source of correct meanings, because they know that holding such a position would immediately lead into absurdity and extremism. Leaf through an etymological dictionary and try to stick to the oldest meaning described there. You'll quickly realise that the source of correct meanings can't be the words and forms from 500, 1000, or 4000 years ago. In fact, I've seen prescriptivists attack usage that's been around for centuries, or demand people follow semantic distinctions between words or constructions that never existed at all.
A book recommendation, if you're interested: L. Bauer and P. Trudgill, Language Myths.
I'll add the book to my list.
I am not suggesting by the way that words should never change in meaning. Rather, I don't think that the default mode shouldn't be "ah well whatever, let's just add a new colloquial definition". The dictionary can chase language, but maybe it shouldn't go at exactly the same pace that people say things on tik tok.
I came across a word I had never seen before this week in a book I'm reading ("schismogenesis" which is apparently a common word in anthropology, but not for engineering) and I immediately had a working definition. This is the reward for learning to me. I have another friend who did similar schooling and he is of the opinion that knowing "$5 words" is stupid and is reading the same book as part of our book club. I can't imagine what it must be like for him to read a book and constantly feel like all you're getting is the gist. The dumbing down of language eliminates nuance because the real depth doesn't come at the 4th grade reading level it feels like descriptivism wants to sink to.
I don't like flattening out language to meet the least common denominator.
I'm a bit late with this reply, but oh well... It seems to me that you equate your acquaintance's position with actual linguistic descriptivism. But no, what he and you show is just different preferences and/or normative relationships towards language. Descriptivism (as in, the position that should be taken by a serious linguist) absolutely does not want to "flatten" language, it does not take a normative position, though it can/should criticise normative positions that are unavoidably based on unscientific notions. Those can include preference for "simple" language. Dictionaries don't follow what's going on at TikTok, so that's just a non-issue.
Like, imagine a Christian talking with an atheist, and calling the atheist a Satanist. This is the same sort of mistake.
You are free to enjoy books with one sort of vocabulary, he's free to enjoy books with an another sort of vocabulary. This is more of a matter of aesthetics, which we could also discuss, but I'd prefer to leave that aside or we'll have to write even further walls of text.
On a very fundamental level, the scaffolding that makes words make sense is the neuron structures in your brain which fire when they recognize certain sounds/scribbles. Things like etymology and grammar are not necessary for a language to be used for communication (in fact, languages existed for much longer than the notions of etymology or grammar). Both of them help make the language more standardized and thus more understandable, but they are not required - you can totally make yourself understood without knowing about either of those things.
You sound like the kind of person who beat up black people because they don't speak good enough according to you.
different languages and institutions have different viewpoints. Turkish and French are more prescriptive, english and spanish more descriptive*
* except when it comes to those gay alternate pronouns, like ew, we can't reflect the documentation of a language for a few Fa-[slur]s.
Spanish from Spain has an official dictionary that dictates what is correct and isn't. You can't be more prescriptive than that. Sure, that dictionary adds words based on usage, even ones that are clear misspellings of the "real" word, but they are marked as so.
The RAE is not a prescriptive institution at all. They fight people on social media over that. They're not shaming anyone for spelling a word different, just describing what the language users are doing.
Now I'm afraid to but too curious not to ask where might I find the octogoose?
In hell, next to cerberus probably.
you gotta make 'em yourself
Octopussies is actually the name for a harem of Maud Adams clones
Just like meese is the plural of moose
No cheeses for us meeces :(
Or: Mouse - mice; house - hice
Plurals in English are always a bit of a roll of the dice...
Merriam Webster's response: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s166nC_hiZ0
I spent the entire 2nd half of that video in fear that it was actually an elaborate "octopodeez nuts" joke
As a native greek speaker, I find anything other than "octopuses" to be silly. In greek we don't say (any more) octopodes, we say "chtapodia" (the "ch" is the canonical (ELOT) transliteration of the letter χ).
Could you just clarify one thing? I was told that the plural wouldn't be octopodes, but octopoda, similarly to what you used for modern Greek.
In modern Greek, singular: χταπόδι, plural: χταπόδια.
Transliterated using standard ELOT (that maps χ to ch) singular: chtapodi, plural: chtapodia.
The word is composite and contracted. First part originally is οχτώ (8) (transliteration: ochto) but has been uncommonly shortened to χτα (chta). Second part is the word for foot (singular: πόδι/podi, plural: πόδια/podia).
So without the uncommon shortening in more archaic Greek it would be: οχταπόδι (ochtapodi) and οχταπόδια (ochtapodia).
If ELOT is ignored and οχτώ is transliterated as octo, then you can get to octapodi, octapodia.
Very interesting, thank you for taking the time to write this out!
Level 10: all forms are valid as long as enough people use them. The currently most used forms are octopuses and octopi, both valid, but octopi is malformed, so octopuses is preferred. Octopussses and octopii and rare variants of those. Also correct, but rarely used.
Octopodes is also correct, but considered pedantic.
Level 11: Just use what you are used to.
Cephalopus
I thought it was octopuxen?
Next, we pronounce "apoptosis".
my my my, what a cunning linguist!
It should just refer to the number of tentacles. So, for two of them, it would be sēdecimpus
Octopuses have limbs known as "arms."
Tentacles are a different thing, like the two that squid have (the rest are also arms.)
Call 'em whatever you like, they're all octobussies to me.
So... 2 cephalopods, 1 cephalopus ?
I do like octopods. I will use that from now on and you can't stop me.
Nobody tell them about level 8
I've always used either octopi or just octopus
They have more than 7 reproductive organs?
Confused Squidward noises.
Lv7: the legs [of]* two octopodum got tangled, so the octopodes asked help from two other octopodibus.
ENOUGH OF THE NOMINATIVE TYRANNY!
*it feels weird to use "of" with genitive, it's like saying *"the leg of a cat's".
“Quadrilogy” was such an all-out assault on etymology, semantics and reason that it just made sense when I learned that a CEO came up with it.
Octopiss
Here I was calling the octopussies.
I cannot NOT read the title as Polysics singing “Coelakanth is Android”
Your prof is Roger Moore?
Level 3 is the most correct.
Nah, level 1 is actually correct. Regardless of its etymology, octopus is an english word and should be pluralised accordingly.
Level 3 includes level 1 in it, with the addition of a plural using the original language's rules.
It would only work the other way around. If english grammar dictates that a loan word's original language grammar be used. Aka level 1 includes level 3. You cannot just throw some other languages grammar at english however you please
.. because English would steal said grammar by itself!
Wait that's illegal!!!
Of course you can, that's why oxen, fungi, etc. exist.
Oxen is historically a 100% English plural, just like child-children, it wasn't loaned. (I should check, but I'm pretty sure it's the same -en as in German plurals: das Auge, die Augen.)
Some of these Latin plurals can survive for technical terminology. But it's pretty much only Latin ones, due to the historical prestige. Nobody talks of Soviet apparatchiki, it's apparatchiks.
But see here's the thing, English has no rules for plurals, so "accordingly" basically means "by vibes".
Not really. Depending on the noun, the plural may be -us (called u-declination) instead of -i (called o-declination)
Example: modus is also modus in plural.
Octopus is a word of Greek origin. Nothing to do with Latin rules.
Octopus is an English word so it is perfectly correct to pluralise it as octopuses. To use octopi is definitely wrong (it's the wrong foreign pluralisation), octopodes is using an uncommon foreign pluralisation so it's not wrong, just non standard
Yeah that part is correct but the first part of the sentence of level 3 is not :)
Ah, so you really have an issue with level 2.
You think we're using a Greek word not an English word?
Seriously, it should be "octopoda".
I actually love octopods. Somehow sounds the least weird of them all.
Octopodes, pronounced oc-top-o-dees, not oc-to-po-des. Like Hercules.
Also, using the I ending to pluralize us endings comes out of an attempted prescriptive reform of English in the late 1800s to make it more like Latin. We still use es endings to pluralize us singulars most of the time, the places where we use I are ether direct usages of Latin words or remnants of that prescriptive push.
I always say 'I saw some octopus'
Also, moose is plural for moose.