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Does that make us a poisonous mammal species? Us and the platypi...
by JulianMorrison 5y ago
Does that make us a poisonous mammal species? Us and the platypi...
- peanut_worm 5y agoWe would be poisonous but platypi are venomous.
- pwdisswordfish0 5y agoShouldn’t it be platypodes?
- Arnavion 5y agoYes, Greek root so it ought to be platypodes, but everyone just says platypi. Similar situation as octopus - Greek root, should be octopodes, everyone just says octopuses. What everyone says defines the language, so platypi and octopuses it is.
- austinjp 5y agoWho's saying octopuses instead of octopi? It might wrong, but it's succinct wrong.
- the_af 5y agoApparently the majority of English speakers say octopuses (which is my preference as well, but I'm not a native speaker). By the way, how do you pronounce octopi? Is it "octo-pee" or "octo-pie"?
- Arnavion 5y agopie
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- quietbritishjim 5y agoYou're missing a word, but it seems like you're saying octopuses is wrong. But it's right, and not just because a spot informal weird had been accepted: it's technically correct. As sibling comments have said, the original plural would be octopodes because it's from the Greek, not octopi because it's not from Latin, but English doesn't normal take Greek plurals.
- the_af 5y agoNot everyone -- enough people write "octopi", especially when trying to sound literate, which is irritating. As is "viri" or "virii".
- bradrn 5y agoAustralian here; I’ve never heard anyone say ‘platypi’. It’s always ‘platypuses’. On the other hand, the plural of ‘octopus’ can be either ‘octopuses’ or ‘octopi’.
- richardw 5y agoI’ve long wanted it to be octopi but my iPhone and most sources say no. Out of the dictionaries, only Oxford English seems to include but says based on a misunderstanding. Some detail on history here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus under pluralisation Interestingly: > Historically, the first plural to commonly appear in English language sources, in the early 19th century, is the latinate form "octopi" That’s quite late and interesting the “wrong” one was first.
- Arnavion 5y agoNow that you mention it, I'm not sure if I've heard platypi or platypuses more.
- jacobolus 5y agoYou have undoubtedly heard platypuses more often. I have never seen nor heard anyone write or say “platypi” before now. Some web sleuthing suggests that platypuses is somewhere between 20 and 100 times more common in English.
- Arnavion 5y agoYour web sleuthing has an American bias. I'm from an English-speaking country but I'm not American.
- jacobolus 5y agoAre you from the 1830s? https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=platypi%2C+platypuses&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cplatypi%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cplatypuses%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=platypi%2C+pla... Platypuses don’t live in North America. Most of the older sources that Google n-gram is pulling from for the above chart are British or Australian. A substantial proportion of the recent uses of platypi are grammar guides telling people that it should always be spelled platypuses.
- samhopewell 5y agoIf I’m going to be wrong I’ll always go with Octopera.
- mellavora 5y agoFun fact: the plural of applepus is apple pie! with vanilla ice cream
- tagh 5y agoPlatypodes is more correct than platypi, but I think that English rules apply once a word is a part of the English language (I don't know who decides that). So it should be platypusses.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]