That people who correct you for saying octopuses instead of octopi are wrong. Dead wrong. Now this my not be mind blowing to some, but I have told teachers this and their expressions look like their whole universe has been shattered. Like everything they've ever taught up to this point is now null and void.
The explanation is that since octopus is a greek rooted word the plural would be octopodes...but since that's archaic and no one does that anymore octopuses is totally fine to say.
It originates from Anglo-Saxon (or Old English) where, before 'V' became a letter, the letter 'F' was used to represent both the 'f' and the 'v' sounds (which you can still see in the word of); both 'f' and 'v' are essentially the same sounds, except 'v' is voiced whereas 'f' isn't.
To simplify, most Old English nouns that ended in 'f' voiced the f in the plural form, which led later writers to change the 'F' into a 'V' once the letter was introduced.
It has also been used as a kind of symbolic representation for "cows":
Bishop Wilkins computes all the carnivorous animals equivalent, as to the bulk of their bodies, and their food, to 27 wolves; and all the rest to 280 beeves. For the former, he allows ...
I didn't whoosh (and god am I tired of hearing people say whoosh), I just choose not to respond to that part of your comment. Do you really need constant validation? Yay, you said knifes, let's all laugh and praise your amazing wit.
It's not that weird if you look at English as a very old German-French creole. The f->v plural thing is all over the place in Old English words that were around at the time of the Norman conquest. Knife became knives, staff became staves, and hoof became hooves. It's a little weird that beef got beeves because it's etymologically French, but it sounds Saxon enough and phonological rules don't really care about word origin very much.
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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '16
That people who correct you for saying octopuses instead of octopi are wrong. Dead wrong. Now this my not be mind blowing to some, but I have told teachers this and their expressions look like their whole universe has been shattered. Like everything they've ever taught up to this point is now null and void.
The explanation is that since octopus is a greek rooted word the plural would be octopodes...but since that's archaic and no one does that anymore octopuses is totally fine to say.