How do you say the plural form of the word "octopus"? Is it "octopi"? "Octopuses"?
According to the fine folks at Merriam-Webster, there really isn't a consensus. It seems all forms might be right. If going for accuracy, "octopodes" is correct since the word is originally Greek and adding "-odes" is how to make those words plural. But in Latin, you add the letter "i," hence octopi.
Merriam-Webster notes that the "i" form can sound "pretentious" and "absurd," leaving "octopuses" which has been in use since the late 1800s. The dictionary giants and the Oxford English Dictionary settle on both "octopi" and "octopuses," with Scrabble allowing points for "octopi".
This brings up the ever confounding question: Why is 'moose' not 'meese' or 'mooses'?
Well, I'll tell ya!
According to Oxford Dictionaries, moose is a “loanword,” meaning that it was a word that was incorporated into the English language from a foreign language with little or no modification. Many other words in the English language are also loanwords, but moose is a relatively new addition, incorporated from several Native American languages in the early 1600s.
Words like goose, tooth, and foot, date back up to a thousand years before moose, when Old English was the ONLY form of English. Back then, pluralization was different.
The word 'moose' has origins that can be traced back to both the Eastern Algonquian and Narragansett languages, which used neither mutations of the word nor the standard modern pluralizations.
So, there you have it! Share this with your friends so they can expand their brains too!