• Dharma Curious (he/him)@slrpnk.netEnglish
    80·
    3 months ago

    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

    • dropcase@lemmy.worldEnglish
      46·
      3 months ago

      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!”

    • HamsterRage@lemmy.caEnglish
      151·
      3 months ago

      For decades now, my wife and I have used “Kleeni” as the plural of “Kleenex”.

          • Tortellinius@lemmy.worldEnglish
            4·
            3 months ago

            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-.

            • Venia Silente@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              1·
              3 months ago

              Well, Latin really is weird but it allows for quite some fun stuff then!

              So really anything could work as long as it ends on -ēs in plural and starts with kleen-.

              Let’s try this:

              Kleenussies is valid, then?

              • Tortellinius@lemmy.worldEnglish
                1·
                3 months ago

                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.

  • AeronMelon@lemmy.worldEnglish
    342·
    3 months ago

    American English: “All of the above are valid.”

    “Even ‘octopussies?’”

    American English: “…sure.”

  • TheTechnician27@lemmy.worldEnglish
    23·
    3 months ago

    It’s technically octopods

    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”.

    • _g_be@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      3 months ago

      I spent the entire 2nd half of that video in fear that it was actually an elaborate “octopodeez nuts” joke

  • acargitz@lemmy.caEnglish
    5·
    3 months ago

    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).

    • fibojoly@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2·
      3 months ago

      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.

      • acargitz@lemmy.caEnglish
        3·
        3 months ago

        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.