The correct octopus plural

The whole octopuses/octopi/octopoda/octopodes issue is hilariously tragic.
There is no black and white solution as three languages are involved.

Octopus is from the taxonomic Neolatin word octopūs and zoologically all -pūs words are 3rd declension Latin and generally masculine (genitive -podis and  plural nominative -podes), because they decided so. The Romans called octopuses polypus, a masculine second declension word (plural polypi), where the pus root is the same. In other words, English pedants would have told the Romans off for not getting their Greek right —ironic given that they are fluent at it as opposed to knowing less than a smattering of rules and words.

So if problem does not lies with the Romans, does it lie with the Greeks?

Maybe… Greek was continually changing and has different periods, the Greek in Greece now speak modern Greek, whereas under the Roman empire it was Koine Greek, before that a mix of dialects which waxing and waining prestige.

An archaic dialect was Doric were the word for foot was πός (pous, genitive που, pou, plural nominative ποί, poi), a second declension, whereas in others such Ionic, the early classic one of Homer, or Attic, the classic one from Athens, it was πούς (pous, genitive ποδος, podos, and plural nominative ποδες, podes). The Romans borrowed polypus from the Doric speakers, so their plural was polypi. A similar muddle happened with the Latin letters and transliterations from Greek.

So to recap in order of decreasing idiocy:

• Octopoda.
• Pro: Yes, octopus may be a masculine not neuter, but the order is called octopoda and Stephen Fry said so on QI.
• Contra: Octopoda is for consistency and Saint Stephen does make mistakes (he got his Greek wrong on The liar by writing patrochles)
• Octopi.
• Pro: Octopus was based on polypus and that zoologists have no right to decide and ruin the purity of Latin historical continuity.
• Contra: The word was coined by zoologists, the Roman's borrowed polypi right before they went out of style, anyway, and there is no such thing as continuity with Neolatin, just anachronism.
• Octopodes.
• Pro: The correct Neolatin plural.
• Contra: Rather hard to pronounce.
• Octopuses.
• Pro: it is not the end of the world.
• Contra. But it is fun.

It is curious how the word pedantry has the Latin pedes as a root…

Fossilised participles

What do nature and furniture have to do with the future?

Participles are adjectives formed from a verb, in English there are two flavours, the active present participle (in -ing) and the passive past participle (in -ed).

In English, there are a great deal of fossilised Latin participles, which are hiding…

In Latin there were four, the active present participle in -ans or -ens (-ant or -ent in English), the passive participle in -atus or -itus (-ate or -ite in English), the active future participle in -aturus or -iturus (-ature or -iture in English) and the passive future participle (actually called a gerundive) -andus or -endus.

It is rather cool thing to know as they are easy to spot.

For example,

Expectant means expecting, dependant means depending on, constant means standing with.

Separate means sperated, ingrate means that has not been graced, passionate means that has been given passion.

Agenda means that will be done, graduand means that will be graduated, memorandum means that will be remembered.

And finally, nature means that will beget (nascent is the present participle equivalent), furniture means that will furnish and future means that will be.

What the logic was for nature and furniture to be future participles is a different matter entirely…

What is the name for fans of Game of Thrones?

Fans of certain cult series have dedicated names: potter-heads love Harry Potter, trekkies or trekkers love Star Trek , twihards love Twilight (or are twice hardened). Game of Thrones is too new to have a name, which is rather curious as several forums seem to discuss it and many possible candidates have been put forth.
What will be the final name?
Will it have been proposed on a forum by some long-haired guy who lives in his parents' basement and accepted by his peers?
Will it have been picked haphazardly by a journalist for some important paper from a cursorily scribbled list?
Call me cynical, but I think the latter is what will happen.
If I were to make one up, I'd propose throne-thralls as it alliterates. Thrall is not a common word and many foreigners struggle with the th group, so it is a stupid suggestion, but I like it.
Uhm… I might troll forums and suggest it… who knows: I might be wrong!

Edit: All sites require one to register and my wish to propose a name is not that strong…

Gaelic denonyms

Dunedin is Anglicised Gaelic word for Edinburgh (dùn Edeann, where dun = burgh), so it is more Gaelic than the original, yet folk from Dunedin are called Dunedinites. The Gaelic suffix for a demonym (the name of a person from a place) is -ach, where the ch group represents /x/, a voiceless velar fricative like in loch. This sound is present in German, but in English it was lost in Middle English. I think it is a shame as it is a fun sound nearly as much as the Xhosa/Zulu click or the Cymraeg (Welsh) double-el (voiceless lateral fricative). So someone from Dunedin could be a Dunedinnach!
This is not the only one that could be made to sound… well… awesome.
Whereas Albania comes from the Latin alba, meaning white or dawn, Albany comes from the Albion, the Latinised Gaelic word Alba, meaning Scotland. The demonym of Albany, NY, is Albanian —Albany, NZ, has none, unless you count mall-rat as a possible one. Albanian for Albany clashes with Albania's Albanians, so a cool solution could be the Gealic word for Scottish Albannach. However, given that most folk in Albany, NZ, are not Scottish, I am not sure it would work…

Viking Manbags

It is amazing where spirals of procrastination lead to. Reading something blatantly non-work-related I came across the word "douchebaggery", which made me amused and bemused. To me the word sounds awkward, but I do see the need for an abstract noun for this fun American common noun which differs slightly from the British "wanker" and "wankiness". Having thought that something a bit smoother than "douchebaggery" must be possible, I checked the expanding universe of cyberspace, but found nothing.

The word sounds etymologically slightly weird, so I checked where "bag" came from. I assumed it would be French as the word baggage sounds it and as it is easy to picture the French inventing something so frivolous like a bag. But I was wrong and identity of the first bag-bearers blew my mind: the Vikings. Yes, bag comes from Old Norse, meaning it was not poncey Frenchmen that invaded England armed with handbags, but the fearsome Vikings did. Just to blow all stereotypes, the Vikings even gave the French the word baggage.
A manbag, therefore,being a gift from the manly Vikings, is the most manly accessory one could sport apart from a horned helmet, a claymore or double-axe.


Damn, that means that being a "douchebag" is a bit manly after all.
It means that if one wanted to go for etymological faux-authenticity "douchebaggery" would be out of the question. The two suffices of Norse origin that make adjectives, verbs or common nouns into abstract nouns are -lock (wedlock) and -red (kindred), but they both sound terrible with douchebag ("douchebaglock" and "douchebagred").
So the best bet is to go with good old Old English ones. Bagginess is a real word, but it is a bit too removed semantically from bag to make "douchebagginess" not awkward sounding. In a similar vein, "douchebagging" is also awkward as "to bag" means to gain possession and who would want to gain possession of a douche? 
The established suffix is ery, which is -er + y, and generally represents a place or an office (bakery), which when used on douchebag makes it sound the official role of a douchebag, so "douchebagship", "douchebaghood" and "douchebagdom" could be alternatives. On second thought, I think I quite like the word "douchebaggery" after all...

Would a Runx by any other name would drive as averagely?

Quo usque tandem abutere, Mitsubishisan, patientia nostra?

When the traffic is standing fast, while one's over-caffeinated mind is running fast, one may be unfortunate enough to get an instant revelation, while involuntarily reading the brand and model of the preceding car: most car names make no sense at all.

The problem is the more one notices it and asks why (the bastardised Shakespeare quote, say), the more one gets annoyed at the probably over-paid consultant that thought that Pajero would be a good car name (hence the bastardised Cicero quote).

This is in fact what happened to me.

To my despair nobody I know has noticed or cared, but to my delight many Internet-wrights (or whatever the term is) have compiled pages upon pages of worst named cars --- the aforementioned "Pajero", means wanker in Spanish, hence it is sold as a "shogun" in Europe. 

I greatly recommend wasting some time reading such sites: did you know that there is a car called a Capuccino?

My pet peeve is the pig Latin used for many car names. I can safely assume a direct Latin-Japanese dictionary must not exist. Toyota, in particular loves Lapanese (Japanese Latin). Caelica means heavenly, so the Celica is an “a” away from being heavenly? Latin and current romance languages have genders and cars are strictly feminine, for a reason unbeknown to me. In Italian the giant panda is masculine, while the fiat Panda is feminine, a full stop (punto) is masculine while a fiat punto is feminine. So dear Toyotasan, it is not a Camry sportivo, but a Camry sportiva. Ten points for the Celica not being a Celicus or Celicum; but minus ten for the prius (neuter, prior is what they were looking for) and minus twenty for declaring that the plural in English of prius is prii, instead of priora or priuses, as it is a loanword after all.

Bad grammar for one-word names apart, the meaning of the words make little sense. Supposedly, the manufactures explain by post-rationalising their choice. Why is a fiat punto is a full stop? Why is a Daihatsu Sirion a burner? Why is a Hyundai i3987654321 a boring series of numbers with a preceding “i”? What the hell is a runx?

I drive a Nissan Pulsar SRV and I can safely say it does not drive like a dead star.

I must admit that giving a name to an average car must be a nightmare, but is it really that hard??

The -meal suffix

An Old English suffix that has been unjustly forgotten is the -meal suffix.
If something is done gradually the phrase that is normally used is x by x, in archaic English -meal suffix can do the same thing, similarly to the Latin -atim. It is not constructive anymore, but several examples are present in the OED:

• piecemeal: piece by piece —only one not obsolete
• stickmeal (styccemǣlum): bit by bit
• yearmeal (gēarmǣlum): year after year
• sheafmeal (scēafmǣlum): sheaf by sheaf, although the later pagemeal works better
• stemmeal (stemmǣlum): turn by turn, alternately
• stepmeal (stæpmǣlum): step by step, gradually
• namemeal (nammǣlum): name by name
• dropmeal: drop by drop
• flockmeal: group by group
• footmeal: foot by foot
• heapmeal: heap by heap
• limbmeal: limb by limb
• stoundmeal: hour by hour
• cupmeal: cup by cup
• gobbetmeal: fragment by fragment
• littlemeal: little by little
• parcelmeal: parcel by parcel
• pennymeal: penny by penny
• piecemeal: piece by piece
• poundmeal: pound by pound
• ravishmeal: rapidly (a Latinisms  by Wyclif from raptim)
• tablemeal: iPad tablet by iPad tablet (from tabulatim)
• fitmeal: jitter by jitter
• inchmeal: inch by inch
• jointmeal: joint by joint
• lumpmeal: lump by lumb
• pagemeal: page by page

Unfortunately, converting the imperial units to metric, sounds terrible, eg. millimetremeal, so they'll have to stay imperial.

Verbatim et letteratim is an expression that means word by word and letter by letter, in other words, with insane thoroughness. It is a rather cool, so with the above it would be wordmeal and lettermeal.

The only problem is that, even knowing the meaning, the words wholemeal, wheatmeal and oatmeal spring to mind…