"Origins of words" by Susie Dent, Countdown 30/01/18 (irregularities: octopuses, octopi or octopodes)

I thought I'd talk a little bit in the next few shows about irregularities of English, becauseeven native speakers know just how thorny and tricky English spelling is - pronunciation, plurals, there are just so many things for us to learn, and I always pity children, except in many ways, that's what makes English what it is, because it is the result of this vast melting pot of different influences that have to bear over the course of various centuries. And one thing, one plural that often comes up, believe it or not, is that of octopus. What is the correct plural of octopus? And in many ways, this small story illustrates just how difficult English is to learn. So, what do you call more than one eight-legged cephalopod? Is it octopuses, or is it octopi? Well, it first showed up in English in the mid-1700s, and it was gives the standard English plural E-S, because that's what we used to do with nouns. So far, so good. Except there was a movement afoot at the time who wanted to bring English into line with classical languages, because they were thought to be not just refined and sophisticated, but also more predictible, and smoother in many ways. So, grammarians at the time took a whole group of English words and gave them Latin endings. It made sense. So, aquariums bacame aquaria and syllabuses became syllabi, criterion, which is Greek, became criteria, etc. And many of them we still keep today. And this is what happened with octopuses as well, they gave it the Latin ending, octopi. So, that sort of makes sense. Except there is only one problem, because yes, it did come to English via Latin, but ultimately, it goes back to Ancient Greek, and when the smarter grammarians worke this out, they gave it the correct Greek plural, which is octopodes, believe it or not, so it's P-O-D-E-S at the end. So the picture became even more difficult. But eventualy, the tide of resistance became too strong, most English speakers accepted that, you know, if it's going to be English, we're going to put the E-S ending on, and that's what they did. So, most people today will say octopuses, rather that octopi or octopodes. But you do have a choice. If you consult Oxford Dictionaries, it will tell you that on a formal occasions you can get away with the Latin ending, but no-one going into guitar shop, as I did once, and asking for a couple of plectra, instead of plectrums, and practically being laughed out of the shop, would do that, I think. Just stick to the English endings - I think pedands will say no, it's got to be Latin. Fine in formal contexts, but otherwise, the English is absolutely fine.