# Proper Greek pluralization, should it trump over 100 years of common English usage? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 15, 2006, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proper-greek-pluralization-should-it-trump-over-100-years-of-common-english-usage/368752 "2006-08-15T01:34:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Noel\_Prosequi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b19c9b/32.png) [@Noel\_Prosequi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noel_Prosequi)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2006, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proper-greek-pluralization-should-it-trump-over-100-years-of-common-english-usage/368752/61 "2006-08-16T08:21:53Z")
In the spirit of “octopuxen”, I kind of like _octopeaux_. But I can’t help thinking that time will trump all debate on this. And in the spirit of Godwin’s Law, I invoke the unholy word that trills crawling horror into the hearts of all Greek/Latin purists. “Television.” There, I said it. Television. Television. Television. MWAHAHAHA. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2006, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proper-greek-pluralization-should-it-trump-over-100-years-of-common-english-usage/368752/62 "2006-08-16T10:49:51Z")
I like the story of the two Oxford professors of mathematics, one of whom dropped the other a note saying “Care to come to my study after Sunday lunch to discuss some conundra concerning pendula?” He received the reply “Surely we have better ways to spend a Sunday afternoon than sitting on our ba doing sa?” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2006, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proper-greek-pluralization-should-it-trump-over-100-years-of-common-english-usage/368752/63 "2006-08-16T11:06:18Z")
[QUOTE=Noel Prosequi] And in the spirit of Godwin’s Law, I invoke the unholy word that trills crawling horror into the hearts of all Greek/Latin purists. “Television.” There, I said it. Television. Television. Television. MWAHAHAHA. [/QUOTE] I can’t help but agree with C. P. Snow when he predicted that nothing good would come of it because the word was half Greek and half Latin; however, presumably the word “telescope” was already taken. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2006, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proper-greek-pluralization-should-it-trump-over-100-years-of-common-english-usage/368752/64 "2006-08-16T12:44:16Z")
[QUOTE=Case Sensitive] [QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness] This meaning crops up all over the place in the fantasy genre, and “pegasi” is the accepted plural. [/QUOTE} With the greatest of respect, I’m not about to accept a Dungeons and Dragons manual as a guide to usage. I have never encountered the word “pegasi”, and I hope I never will: you might as well claim that Cyrus Jones and Cyrus Smith are both cyri.[/quote] And with the greatest of respect, if you won’t accept as a usage cite a place where the word is used, you’ve got some serious problems understanding how language works. If you’d like to show some other places where “pegasus” is used as a non-proper noun and is pluralized in some other fashion, have at it; but rejecting a place where it’s commonly used because it’s beneath you is just ridiculous. > [@](#): > > Not really: “octopuses” at least has the virtue of following the basic English rule of pluralisation: if you are going to throw out Latin and Greek endings bag and baggage and just add an “s” to make plurals, fine - you lose some of the meaning, true, but at least gain consistency. So you don’t mind if the meaning is lost, then? > [@](#): > > Faux-learned plurals like “octopi”, though, sacrifice both meaning _and_ consistency, and further muddy the waters by suggesting that the correct way to pluralise _any_ word ending in “us” is to add an “i”: thus abominable constructions like “Pegasi”. One might as well insist that the plural of octopus is octopuxen. Why is this abominable? Many English words ending in -us pluralize with -i, and I don’t think most people do it because they realize they’re pluralizing Latin words. > [@](#): > > your use of the word “pedantry” is amusingly apt in the context of this thread. It’s a strength of the language, and it would be a pity to sacrifice it on the altar of ignorance. I’m so glad you’re easily amused, but I think you may be misunderstanding the locus of ignorance here. > [@](#): > > So ignorance is defensible on the grounds that being informed makes one sound affected? That’s an…interesting…position. Do you apply it to any other fields of learning? If you think ignorance of etymology translates to ignorant language use, I suggest you study up on your linguistics; this is itself an ignorant position. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2006, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proper-greek-pluralization-should-it-trump-over-100-years-of-common-english-usage/368752/65 "2006-08-16T14:53:02Z")
[QUOTE=Case Sensitive] You do now. This knowledge also now deepens your understanding of the words podiatrist, podium, cephalopod, sesquipedalian, podcast, and, if you’d care to check the eytomology, pedant itself. Ahem. [/quote] :: snerk :: You think “podcast” comes from the same root as “podiatrist”? Gee, looks like the ability to put together and take apart words like Legos is not serving you well. I have to say, I’m vastly amused by the logic that says that, if you ddn’t know what an octopus was, but you knew the etymological plural and enough Greek to guess at the meaning of the word, you’d be able to sort of guess what it might be. How many people don’t know what an octopus is but know enough Greek to break the word into its component parts? Doesn’t really strike me as all that likely, is all. And you’d probably guess it was a spider. Prescriptivists are funny. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2006, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proper-greek-pluralization-should-it-trump-over-100-years-of-common-english-usage/368752/66 "2006-08-16T15:07:01Z")
[QUOTE=Case Sensitive] You do now. This knowledge also now deepens your understanding of the words podiatrist, podium, cephalopod, sesquipedalian, podcast, and, if you’d care to check the eytomology, pedant itself. Ahem. [/quote] Podcast? “Foot broadcast”? Really? Anyway, you’re forgetting something; podiatrist, podium, podcast, and pedant are all the common names for the thing they refer to. I can still have my “deepened knowledge” by knowing what \*they \* mean. So by losing octopodes, I haven’t lost “podes” at all, which is more in line with what I meant by “singly-handedly destroying our ability to understand meaning”; there are still common words with podes, and so unless we lose _all_ pode words (well, all but two, assuming your point is that we can extend our knowledge from one to understand the other) we will still have that knowledge. And if there’s only two left, the knowledge is essentially useless, is it not? We’d only be able to understand one other word, after all. > [@](#): > > As for it “single-handedly destroying our ability to understand meaning”, nowhere did I make that claim: all I pointed out was that perpetuating the error whittled away, in however small a fashion, at the ability to dismantle and thus further understand a word. This I regard as A Bad Thing, and a loss to language, which ought not to pander to ignorance. Language ought not to pander to ignorance? Fine, i’ll tell it that next time I see it. 😉 Seriously though, I could equally say you’re pandering to ignorance by not accepting the common standard; by seperating yourself with a rarer form of grammar, you’re remaining ignorant of what most people are using. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2006, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proper-greek-pluralization-should-it-trump-over-100-years-of-common-english-usage/368752/67 "2006-08-16T15:08:05Z")
[QUOTE=Excalibre] :: snerk :: You think “podcast” comes from the same root as “podiatrist”? [/QUOTE] 😃 I missed this. Does that mean a podiatrist diagnoses your condition based on the music you listen to? Daniel ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2006, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proper-greek-pluralization-should-it-trump-over-100-years-of-common-english-usage/368752/68 "2006-08-16T15:22:58Z")
[QUOTE=Excalibre] :: snerk :: You think “podcast” comes from the same root as “podiatrist”? [/QUOTE] “The podcast is up… It’s long enough… It’s straight enough… It’s good!” ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2006, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proper-greek-pluralization-should-it-trump-over-100-years-of-common-english-usage/368752/69 "2006-08-16T21:01:20Z")
[QUOTE=Excalibre] :: snerk :: You think “podcast” comes from the same root as “podiatrist”? Gee, looks like the ability to put together and take apart words like Legos is not serving you well. [/QUOTE] It. Was. A. Joke. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2006, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proper-greek-pluralization-should-it-trump-over-100-years-of-common-english-usage/368752/70 "2006-08-16T21:06:16Z")
[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness] [QUOTE=Case Sensitive] And with the greatest of respect, if you won’t accept as a usage cite a place where the word is used, you’ve got some serious problems understanding how language works. [/QUOTE] Oh, If you would like to find me a cite for “Pegasi” that doesn’t occur between “Owlbear” and “Phantom Fungus”, I might be inclined to take it more seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2006, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proper-greek-pluralization-should-it-trump-over-100-years-of-common-english-usage/368752/71 "2006-08-16T21:13:05Z")
[QUOTE=Case Sensitive] [QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness] Oh, If you would like to find me a cite for “Pegasi” that doesn’t occur between “Owlbear” and “Phantom Fungus”, I might be inclined to take it more seriously. [/QUOTE] So you want a cite for an imaginary creature that doesn’t occur in a list of imaginary creatures? Is this another one of your jokes? Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2006, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proper-greek-pluralization-should-it-trump-over-100-years-of-common-english-usage/368752/72 "2006-08-16T21:18:34Z")
[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness] [QUOTE=Case Sensitive] So you want a cite for an imaginary creature that doesn’t occur in a list of imaginary creatures? Is this another one of your jokes? Daniel [/QUOTE] No, I would like a cite for the usage of the _word_ from a slightly more credible source than an online Dungeons And Dragons manual. ---
**Author:** ![mr.jp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/48db29/32.png) [@mr.jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr.jp)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2006, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proper-greek-pluralization-should-it-trump-over-100-years-of-common-english-usage/368752/73 "2006-08-16T21:31:07Z")
So. Why are some Greek words allowed to have a Latin pluralis in English while others are not? Surely it shouldn’t matter if some (stupid) Romans didn’t know how to use the original pluralis. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2006, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proper-greek-pluralization-should-it-trump-over-100-years-of-common-english-usage/368752/74 "2006-08-16T21:44:53Z")
[QUOTE=Case Sensitive] [QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness] No, I would like a cite for the usage of the _word_ from a slightly more credible source than an online Dungeons And Dragons manual. [/QUOTE] Okay. Can you explain what would constitute a better cite for the usage of a word that refers to a fantasy creature than from a game that deals with fantasy creatures? Believe me, those cites are out there–I have access to Google–but I don’t want to waste my time if your standards are as bizarre as I suspect they are. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2006, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proper-greek-pluralization-should-it-trump-over-100-years-of-common-english-usage/368752/75 "2006-08-16T21:53:19Z")
Oh, they are indeed out there: why, the first reference to “pegasi” I found was from the My Little Pony school of fantasy art that is the province of one [“Dan Greywolf”](http://www.pegasinest.demon.co.uk/). Call my standards bizarre if you will, but Mr Greywolf has, if anything, strengthened my conviction that “pegasi” is a word used only by the differently girlfriend abled. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2006, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proper-greek-pluralization-should-it-trump-over-100-years-of-common-english-usage/368752/76 "2006-08-16T22:07:33Z")
[QUOTE=Left Hand of DorknessYour last sentence shows the first paragraph isn’t much of a concern for you. If more than one octopus are octopuses, then you’ve lost exactly the same thing that you’ve lost by calling them octopi. Daniel[/QUOTE] But ‘octopuses’ has the advantage of being a correct English plural. ‘Octopi’ sounds like misguided genteelism, as if intended to show that the speaker has a passing familiarity with Latin and Classical scholarship (or alternatively, with biology). I take this opportunity to express my disdain for the recent proliferation of _-i_ plurals, like a cancer, for anything that ends in an /s/. _Elvi_, _Apprenti_, and other such abominations are beneath contempt. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2006, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proper-greek-pluralization-should-it-trump-over-100-years-of-common-english-usage/368752/77 "2006-08-16T22:14:58Z")
[QUOTE=Case Sensitive] but Mr Greywolf has, if anything, strengthened my conviction that “pegasi” is a word used only by the **differently girlfriend abled**. [/QUOTE] You’ve lost me here. Are you referring to sexual orientation here? ---
**Author:** ![sinjin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sinjin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sinjin)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2006, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proper-greek-pluralization-should-it-trump-over-100-years-of-common-english-usage/368752/78 "2006-08-16T22:39:03Z")
[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus] You’ve lost me here. Are you referring to sexual orientation here? [/QUOTE] No, he’s saying they’re losers who can’t get dates. ---
**Author:** ![sinjin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sinjin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sinjin)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2006, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proper-greek-pluralization-should-it-trump-over-100-years-of-common-english-usage/368752/79 "2006-08-16T22:58:01Z")
[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus] But ‘octopuses’ has the advantage of being a correct English plural. ‘Octopi’ sounds like misguided genteelism, as if intended to show that the speaker has a passing familiarity with Latin and Classical scholarship (or alternatively, with biology). I take this opportunity to express my disdain for the recent proliferation of _-i_ plurals, like a cancer, for anything that ends in an /s/. _Elvi_, _Apprenti_, and other such abominations are beneath contempt. [/QUOTE] I would like to second this. I don’t care that you don’t know Latin and Greek, really, I don’t. But don’t try to pretend that you’re doublepluscool by misapplying some rule you half remember and one quarter understand. If you toss ‘hippopotami’ into a sentence you look like a poser. If you use ‘hippopotamoi’ you sound a bit strange, but the “in crowd” (here defined as the philologists, I guess) will get to have a giggle. Ditto for peni/penii v. penes. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2006, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proper-greek-pluralization-should-it-trump-over-100-years-of-common-english-usage/368752/80 "2006-08-16T23:01:06Z")
**sinjin** expresses it eloquently: I suspect a man who names his pegasuxen “Seauniotter”, “Seauniorca” and “Seaunidolphin” of being, indeed, a loser who can’t get dates. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proper-greek-pluralization-should-it-trump-over-100-years-of-common-english-usage/368752.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proper-greek-pluralization-should-it-trump-over-100-years-of-common-english-usage/368752.md?page=5)