Octopuses . . . Octopi . . . Octopodes

17 May 2017

Have you ever come across a word and really . . . I mean REALLY . . . wondered about it? I'm 54 years old and still don't know all of the rules about plurals. You'd think I'd know them all by now, wouldn't you?

Here's the key: never stop learning

Yeah, I actually had to look up the plural of octopus. I've actually used the word "octopi" when talking about multiple octopus, but I just assumed it was sort of made up . . . turns out, it's actually correct! In fact, all three of those uses . . . octopuses, octopi, and octopodes . . . are correct.

Here are some odd ones:

• One mouse, two mice
• One moose, two moose
• One goose, two geese
• One brother-in-law, two brothers-in-law
• One fish, two fish
• One scissors, two scissors
• One child, two children
• One half, two halves
• One formula, two formulae

There are no hard and fast rules to making words plural!!

Now that you've got that down . . . 

So, at one time, I truly wanted to be a marine biologist . . . mostly because I've always been fascinated by sea creatures! Of course, when I was a child I had to rely on either pictures, Jacques Cousteau, or my father's descriptions to know what lived under the water . . . and my father's descriptions generally scared the hell out of me!

With the invention of YouTube though, I've become sort of addicted to videos about sea creatures . . . in particular octopus . . . even more specific mimic octopus! I can't remember the first time I watched one, but I was over the age of 40 before I even knew they existed. I was watching a TV show on Animal Planet . . . probably The Big Blue Planet . . . and they followed these strange creatures to see what they would do.

Now the only defense I knew octopi had was ink . . . they'd get scared and suddenly shoot out this jet of black ink to confuse the predator! I'd even seen that while snorkeling off the Keys and the Great Barrier Reef.

Side note: some people find octopus cooked in its own ink a delicacy . . . our maid in Spain, for instance, ordered this one time when we took her on vacation . . . not MY cup of tea . . . but whatever.

Does this look tasty to you???

Well, on this show the octopus could not only change their shape to blend into something in the ocean . . . like a fish or a snake . . . but they could actually change their color as well . . . to match the background. I was fascinated! A little sad that, once again, I hadn't studied to be a marine biologist so I could see these first hand!
 

The octopus in "shape" on the left . . . what it's mimicking on the right from flounder, to lion fish, to sea snake

Now you DON"T see him . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . now you do!

There are more than 300 species of octopi, and they're all pretty amazing. Smart too . . . I've seen them take lids off jars, crack open coconut shells, squeeze into impossibly small spots . . . they're just so cool!

They come in all kinds of shapes and colors . . . there's even an adorable one that they just discovered last year! I'm not even sure they've even named this little guy yet, but some people are calling it "Adorabilis!"

This little guy looks like something out of PacMan!

A relative of the octopus, the cuttlefish, is another color-changing, shape-shifting creature!

Can you see the cuttlefish??

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