# Halibut
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/halibut/602569
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
**Created:** [November 11, 2011, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/halibut/602569 "2011-11-11T04:25:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@BeavisReturn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeavisReturn)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2011, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/halibut/602569/1 "2011-11-11T04:25:50Z")
Dude!
Piranhas are not sea creatures!
This is the same fallacy perpetuated by the B-52s’ Rock Lobster – “Watch out for that piranha!”
😕
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### Author:  [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2011, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/halibut/602569/2 "2011-11-11T04:34:15Z")
[Is there such a thing as death by halibut?](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3022/is-there-such-a-thing-as-death-by-halibut)
Why single out the pirahna and not also the candiru, another nasty little critter that does not live in the oceans.
That was obviously a throwaway line not intended to relay anything factual.
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### Author:  [@BeavisReturn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeavisReturn)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2011, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/halibut/602569/3 "2011-11-11T04:37:22Z")
Yeah, I know.
But it’s still a good song! 😃
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### Author:  [@mberow2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mberow2)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2011, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/halibut/602569/4 "2011-11-11T16:24:26Z")
Look on YouTube for ‘Asian carp’. Engine noise makes silver Asian carp go batsh\*t.
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### Author:  [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2011, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/halibut/602569/5 "2011-11-11T17:46:47Z")
> [@BeavisReturn](#):
>
> Dude!
> Piranhas are not sea creatures!
> This is the same fallacy perpetuated by the B-52s’ Rock Lobster – “Watch out for that piranha!”
> 😕
Oh, ye of little faith! Cecil’s actual quote was:
> [@](#):
>
> As sea creatures go, you don’t think of halibut as being all that dangerous. Other aquatic denizens, sure. Sharks, barracudas, stingrays, jellyfish, sea urchins, octopuses, squid, moray eels, piranha, our little friend the candiru … these are names that justly inspire dread. The halibut, no.
Note that he is not calling piranha or candiru “sea creatures” but “other aquatic denizens.”
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### Author:  [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2011, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/halibut/602569/6 "2011-11-11T17:47:09Z")
Maybe this is why I paid $8 for a sliver of grilled halibut at the grocery store this summer ($27 per pound, it was). I thought maybe it was the Last of the Halibut, population decimated by anything-to-make-a-buck fisherman. Now I see there might still be a few halibut swimming around but the fishermen need combat pay and bigger first aid kits.
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### Author:  [@BeavisReturn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeavisReturn)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2011, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/halibut/602569/7 "2011-11-11T18:32:57Z")
> [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](#):
>
> Oh, ye of little faith! Cecil’s actual quote was: Note that he is not calling piranha or candiru “sea creatures” but “other aquatic denizens.”
Yeah, yeah, Cecil is infallible.
I just wanted to make a B-52s joke!!! 😛
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### Author:  [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2011, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/halibut/602569/8 "2011-11-11T19:01:23Z")
Ha!
“So, just like the ending of Hamlet, only with a fish.”
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### Author:  [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2011, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/halibut/602569/9 "2011-11-11T20:45:25Z")
Very funny column. Is there a new incarnation, after the very strained “humor” of recent entries?
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2011, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/halibut/602569/10 "2011-11-11T21:27:38Z")
Decades ago my dad caught a 200+ lb halibut in Alaska, and they did in fact have to bludgeon the thing to death with oars. Supposedly, it was the largest rod-and-reel catch in the state for the year.
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### Author:  [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2011, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/halibut/602569/11 "2011-11-12T03:45:38Z")
> [@TSBG](#):
>
> Very funny column. Is there a new incarnation, after the very strained “humor” of recent entries?
New “incarnation” of what?
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### Author:  [@opticsverity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/opticsverity)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2011, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/halibut/602569/12 "2011-11-12T04:25:20Z")
“Sharks, barracudas, stingrays, jellyfish, sea urchins, octopuses, squid, moray eels, piranha, our little friend the candiru …”
The plural of octopus is octopode not octopuses, octopuses is the common pluralization in the UK and US but octopode is the proper designated pluralization in accordance to biological terminology.
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### Author:  [@YourAdHere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YourAdHere)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2011, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/halibut/602569/13 "2011-11-12T05:35:38Z")
[quote=“opticsverity, post:12, topic:602569”]
"Sharks, barracudas, stingrays, jellyfish, sea urchins, octopuses, squid, moray eels, piranha, our little friend the candiru
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### Author:  [@YourAdHere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YourAdHere)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2011, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/halibut/602569/14 "2011-11-12T05:38:10Z")
I don’t know what happened to my post, but I meant to say: wouldn’t it be “octopoda”? Anyways, octopuses and octopi are both accepted bc people have been using them so much.
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### Author:  [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2011, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/halibut/602569/15 "2011-11-12T14:19:35Z")
> [@opticsverity](#):
>
> The plural of octopus is octopode not octopuses, octopuses is the common pluralization in the UK and US but octopode is the proper designated pluralization in accordance to biological terminology.
No, the plural of octopus is octopuses.
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### Author:  [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2011, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/halibut/602569/16 "2011-11-12T16:04:09Z")
Alright, who the heck is right here? I don’t want to go around using the plural of Octopus wrong. Imagine my shame!
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### Author:  [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2011, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/halibut/602569/17 "2011-11-12T16:26:18Z")
From wikipedia:
> [@](#):
>
> The Oxford English Dictionary (2008 Draft Revision)[38] lists “octopuses”, “octopi”, and “octopodes” (in that order), labelling “octopodes” ‘rare’ and noting that “octopi” derives from the apprehension that octōpus is a second declension Latin noun, though it is not.
I would have linked to the OED directly, but it looks like it’s subscription required.
Personally, I would go with “octopuses”. The alternatives are certainly no more correct, and strike me as a bit pretentious.
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### Author:  [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)
#### Post date: [November 12, 2011, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/halibut/602569/18 "2011-11-12T22:51:01Z")
I always enjoyed the fact that “octopus” has three dictionary-approved, legit, plurals.
On Cecil’s humor: I don’t know what “incarnation” means, but Cecil does go through phases in his humor. He has bits that are only funny to him, and then he has bits that excel (such as “Like Hamlet, only with a fish.”) His knowledge is infallible (occasionally his editor goofs), but his sense of humor is not.
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### Author:  [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2011, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/halibut/602569/19 "2011-11-13T01:38:41Z")
“incarnation”=someone different writing the column now, or sometimes filling in. I understand that you guys have to pretend otherwise.
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### Author:  [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2011, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/halibut/602569/20 "2011-11-13T08:01:39Z")
> [@TSBG](#):
>
> I understand that you guys have to pretend otherwise.
They don’t \*have \*to. They do it just for the halibut.
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