Quote:
Originally Posted by ocgforme
...Then again, some overly-certified "experts" formally changed the plural of octopus to 'octopuses', simply to make spelling "easier". Let's gut the perfectly valid, Latin-based, LOGICAL format for singular and plural nouns, just because our colleges have turned out two generations of teachers who don't *know* the rule, rather than REALLY fix the problem.
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No, no, NO! It's Greek, it's not Latin. Octopuses has always been correct, and "octopi" has always been wrong. (It's hypercorrection, from people thinking that the "-us" is from a masculine Latin verb forming its plural by "-i". But it doesn't have a Latin root at all.
Platypuses is also correct, for the same reason.
Something really objectionable, IMO, is the NY Times writing "millenniums" for "millennia". That really grates...