Octopuses seen hunting together with fish in rare video — and punching fish that don't cooperate

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I love to eat octopus. Selfishly I hope there are no regulations passed to prevent their consumption.
 
Harkthasound said:
Now I’m trying to figure where I was taught to use the plural “octopi.”
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It's because it sounds like a Latinate word, but it's not. It's from the Greek. Its plural would actually be octopodes, but nobody wants to say that so we've accepted octopuses. Octopi is accepted because sometimes common mistakes become part of the language. Like ain't or y'all. Sometimes those changes are good, as in ain't and y'all. Sometimes it's less good, as with octopi.
 
The natural world is far, far more varied than our human senses can experience. The concept of umwelt is important here, where we begin to acknowledge and learn about another animal's experience through their particular set of senses.

"Ethologists have adopted the word Umwelt, a German word for environment, to denote an organism’s unique sensory world. The umwelt of a male yellow fever mosquito (Aedes aegypti), for example, differs sharply from that of a human."

This book blew my mind in explaining how profoundly different other organisms experience the world. And in some ways how that may postulate to cognition.

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superrific said:
It's because it sounds like a Latinate word, but it's not. It's from the Greek. Its plural would actually be octopodes, but nobody wants to say that so we've accepted octopuses. Octopi is accepted because sometimes common mistakes become part of the language. Like ain't or y'all. Sometimes those changes are good, as in ain't and y'all. Sometimes it's less good, as with octopi.
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Octopi is more good as an acceptable incorrect word than ain’t. Ain’t doesn’t even sound anything like what it’s a bastardization of.
 
NPR has had several things about octopick-your-plural lately. They had the original story this thread was about today, but a few days ago there was a segment about how they walk around on land, escape from their tanks like in Finding Dory, sometimes get out of their tanks at night to eat fish from other tanks, change to a pleased color when cuddled and pet. They really are amazing.
 
Rougemont said:
Octopi is more good as an acceptable incorrect word than ain’t. Ain’t doesn’t even sound anything like what it’s a bastardization of.
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1. Ain't got started in 16th or 17th century England. They used to say amn't, which then became an't, and then in Cockney dialects the an became ain. There's a straight line between its original meaning and our current version of the word. It's just a long line, and in language, that means change is inevitable.

2. In one of the greatest dialogue scenes in movie history, Sam Jackson says, "What ain't no country I ever heard of."

I have never heard Sam Jackson say "octopi." I doubt he can make it as cool as ain't.

3. Ain't is a staple of Black American English. Black American English is an amazing dialect.
 
superrific said:
1. Ain't got started in 16th or 17th century England. They used to say amn't, which then became an't, and then in Cockney dialects the an became ain. There's a straight line between its original meaning and our current version of the word. It's just a long line, and in language, that means change is inevitable.

2. In one of the greatest dialogue scenes in movie history, Sam Jackson says, "What ain't no country I ever heard of."

I have never heard Sam Jackson say "octopi." I doubt he can make it as cool as ain't.

3. Ain't is a staple of Black American English. Black American English is an amazing dialect.
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Fair points, most of them, but now I can't help but hear Sam Jackson in my head:

"Octopi ain't no animal I ever heard of."
 
superrific said:
1. Ain't got started in 16th or 17th century England. They used to say amn't, which then became an't, and then in Cockney dialects the an became ain. There's a straight line between its original meaning and our current version of the word. It's just a long line, and in language, that means change is inevitable.

2. In one of the greatest dialogue scenes in movie history, Sam Jackson says, "What ain't no country I ever heard of."

I have never heard Sam Jackson say "octopi." I doubt he can make it as cool as ain't.

3. Ain't is a staple of Black American English. Black American English is an amazing dialect.
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I'd have thought there was some spillover from the archaic shant, meaning shall not and ain't as will not.

Fwiw, it's every bit as country as it is black.
 
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