A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
One of my favorite things in life is using Latin or Greek plurals on words that it makes absolutely no sense to use them on, and do not follow the rules of any language naturally involved.
I had steak and potati for dinner last night. Just one steak, though, I cannot eat multiple steakices
Reminds me of a joke:
A Roman soldier walks into a bar and says, "I'll have a martinus"
Bartender says, "don't you mean a martini?"
The Roman says. "if I wanted more than one I would've asked for it!"
I also do this! My personal top 3 are:
Jesus - Jesi
Bus - Bi
Penis - Penorum
Penis - Penorum
WROOOOONG! Now write the full declension table on that wall. And make sure to draw some pictures with it, so you never forget the word! :-p
People called Romanes, they go, the house?!
It's the genitive! Genitive! Which makes the plural.. um! Penum! Penum! Romanorum penum amplitudines non magni sunt!
c===3, c===3, c===3.
Poetry was made today.
For decades now, my wife and I have used "Kleeni" as the plural of "Kleenex".
Kleenex is Kneenes according to the rules of Latin, actually
But the plural of index is indices in Latin, so shouldn't the plural of Kleenex under those rules be Kleenices?
It's hard to tell because the deviating form in Latin is actually the nominative singular, which is why vocab lists include the genitive singular as well. All other forms have the same stem aside from Nom. Sg. A few examples are:
senex - senēs (elder)
rēx - rēgēs (king)
index - indīcēs (index)
So really anything could work as long as it ends on -ēs in plural and starts with kleen-.
Well, Latin really is weird but it allows for quite some fun stuff then!
So really anything could work as long as it ends on -ēs in plural and starts with kleen-.
Let's try this:
Kleenussies is valid, then?
Haha! It would be unconventional to use a double s in any form aside from the s-perfect, which is the time form of a verb, the superlative forms of adjective, or beyond the first two syllables. After a bit of research an accurate word would be either a g, k, or a c (all formed in approx. the same area of the mouth as x) instead of the x followed by the -ēs. Trying to pronounce Kleenex with an i before the g, k or c sounds less like Kleenex than index sounds similar to indices. The transition from a vibrating sound like the n to an i also feels unnatural at that part of a word, normally it comes after a t or a d sound. Also the name itself stems from the verb "to clean" and the latin suffix -ex. If it suggests something like a "cleaning king" the resulting word could therefore be Kleenegēs, but Kleenecēs is not off the table.
However, my initial suggestion is inaccurate. The senex-style plural (Kleenēs) is a special case of which it ism't resolved why senex drops its -x entirely on flexation.
Looks like you beat us to level 7
2π: two pi
π: one pus
Its whatever your heart is telling you.
Any mistake I make is actually just my dialect
Don't bother correcting my English grammar, as I have no respect for this language <3
And if folks knew what you meant, it's fine
Octopoden!
There were manny of them! Manny much octopoden!
American English: "All of the above are valid."
"Even 'octopussies?'"
American English: "...sure."
"even 'octopussies'?"
american english:
Search engines: Sir, this is a work computer
Octopodes nuts
It's technically octopods
This is true for the scientific sense that it's order Octopoda (e.g. the plural for members of Hexapoda is "hexapods" and likewise "decapods" for Decapoda), but then it's kind of like saying the plural for "lobster" is "nephropids". The names are close for Octopoda and octopus, but it's still taking the colloquial name and pluralizing it into its scientific name. It's not specifically "to bring it in line with cephalopod"; that's just how generic names of members of taxa ending in 'poda' work generally.
Strictly speaking, "octopods" is the plural of "octopod".
Once I learned that “octopodes” is pronounced oct-TOP-o-dees not OCT-uh-pohds it became my pluralization of choice.
Octopodes nuts
2 octopus = 1 hexadecipus
4 Quadropus = 8 bipus
Just like meese is the plural of moose
Plurals in English are always a bit of a roll of the dice...
No cheeses for us meeces :(
Or: Mouse - mice; house - hice
Now I'm afraid to but too curious not to ask where might I find the octogoose?
In hell, next to cerberus probably.
Student: "language is prescriptive not descriptive"
Teacher: "you fail 3rd grade spelling"
And I absolutely support keeping people back who believe English should be guided and evolved through "Likes".
Putting aside the technicalities (it is not language that is prescriptive or descriptive, but linguistics), that's a widespread position among perfectly literate people, including professional linguists. Nothing to do with the number of "likes".
As a native greek speaker, I find anything other than "octopuses" to be silly. In greek we don't say (any more) octopodes, we say "chtapodia" (the "ch" is the canonical (ELOT) transliteration of the letter χ).
Could you just clarify one thing? I was told that the plural wouldn't be octopodes, but octopoda, similarly to what you used for modern Greek.
In modern Greek, singular: χταπόδι, plural: χταπόδια.
Transliterated using standard ELOT (that maps χ to ch) singular: chtapodi, plural: chtapodia.
The word is composite and contracted. First part originally is οχτώ (8) (transliteration: ochto) but has been uncommonly shortened to χτα (chta). Second part is the word for foot (singular: πόδι/podi, plural: πόδια/podia).
So without the uncommon shortening in more archaic Greek it would be: οχταπόδι (ochtapodi) and οχταπόδια (ochtapodia).
If ELOT is ignored and οχτώ is transliterated as octo, then you can get to octapodi, octapodia.
Level 10: all forms are valid as long as enough people use them. The currently most used forms are octopuses and octopi, both valid, but octopi is malformed, so octopuses is preferred. Octopussses and octopii and rare variants of those. Also correct, but rarely used.
Octopodes is also correct, but considered pedantic.
Level 11: Just use what you are used to.
They have more than 7 reproductive organs?
I thought it was octopuxen?
