But isn't etymology descriptive, instead of prescriptive? And if it's prescriptive, how far do you want to go, etymologically? According to Wiktionary[1], the

But isn't etymology descriptive, instead of prescriptive? And if it's prescriptive, how far do you want to go, etymologically? According to Wiktionary[1], the term originates from a Proto-Indo-European language (but doesn't give plural forms for those roots). And isn't it also the case that once a word gets accepted into a language, it becomes a word in that language, no matter where it comes from? There are _several_ examples of such words, in all the European languages. The word "common", for example, dates back to Latin "communis", and I'm pretty sure the adverbial form for that isn't "communisly", so why the exception for Octopus? [1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CF%80%CE%BF%CF%8D%CF%82#Ancient_Greek https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CF%80%CE%BF%CF%8D%CF%82#Anci...