this is simultaneously tongue in cheek and absolutely genuine, but i must say that the erroneous latinisation of processes (and indeed premises) has for long deeply enraged me, especially because, for those who tend to use it, they use it in academic, formal, or generally educational settings. it is therefore a deep catharsis that you mention it in this video luke; my thanks. and by the by, i will definitely be considering enrolling in the old english course of ancient language institute.
It’s so nice to hear that someone else emphasizes with one of my biggest pet peeves! Haha. I have long wanted to make a video “rant” specifically about “process-eeze” but this was a good time to plug it in. “Enraged” is the right word! Hahah. Thanks for the comment
You'll both be pleased to hear that PRO-sess-iz is standard in the UK (at least until US culture has obliterated ours): you might consider moving here. :-)
4:53 The Latin 'Octopodes' reminds me Sanskrit's 'Aṣṭāpadi', which also mean eight legged. By the way 'Aṣṭa' mean eight and 'Padi' mean legs with a plural!
I'm a physical therapist and some anatomical terminoloy stemming from Latin retain the -ae and -i ending plural forms (one scapula, two scapulae, one malleolus, two malleoli, one vertebra, twelve vertebrae, one multifidus, many multifidi, etc. etc.). As a student in PT school 7 years ago I always wondered why these were like this, and now as a language enthusiast I see why!
@@polyMATHY_Luke I've been trying to learn EVERY bone in the human body by its Latin name. It would be so fun to have a complete video about it. Although it's really hard to nail down exactly every bone since some bones are practically called the same and are generalized as one by many videos on yt and sites. It would be nerdy but really fun to know all these by heart (in Latin ofc). A nice entry to perhaps step into biology in the future. Maybe add mnemonics or literal translations since they are somewhat logically/comprehensibly derived
Polypus: in spanish we have "pulpo", it's kind of obvious now that you showed polypus, but I never thought of it since it's a bit disguised, while english's Octopus always seemed very straightforward to me
I need to add that the feminization and singularization of Latin plural neuter terms doesn't happen only on English and Romance language! "Agenda" or "Ατζέντα" is also singular and feminine in Greek! That's just awesome!
This video could not have come out at a better time! I've been complaining about pronouncing plurals of Greek words in English to my coworkers recently. We make satellites, so we talk about ephemerides regularly (pronounced e-phe-MER-i-des). However, every other time I've heard someone say "octopodes," it's always with three syllables (OC-to-podes) rather than four, making me more likely to say e-PHEM-e-rides as four syllables rather than five. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this way of importing Greek plurals into English versus your more "correct" pronunciation used in the video.
I'm with you. There is some aerospace academic department -- I think Perdue or Embry-Riddle turning out BS graduates that pronounce "ephemerides" like it rhymes with insecticides.
I tend to say Octopi bc I think it sounds better personally, but I've also heard octopus (ie, no change, like "moose"), octopuses, and octopodes, and as a native english speaker, they all sound equally grammatical to me. Whether or not a plural form is etymologically "correct" matters a lot less to me than that it's understandable. I actually really love etymologically "incorrect" plurals because of how they demonstrate the role of pattern recognition in language evolution.
Of the two English dictionaries I most use, Merriam-Webster (American) says the plural of octopus is octopuses or octopi, but Oxford English Dictionary (British) says the plural is octopodes or, if anglicized, octopuses. Ever since learning of "octopodes" (maybe 25 or 30 years ago) I've preferred it. Amazingly, "octopodes" actually occurred in an American comic strip (Pogo) on June 12, 1954, despite the strip's usual preference for mangled English such as "octopots" and "octopockles" (e.g. Oct. 17, 1954 -- a horribobble use of scienterrific langridge).
Those are not Cacti (Family Cactaceae) at 1:12, but Euphorbias (Family Euphorbiaceae), a diverse group of mostly succulent plants found in the hotter parts of the world. Those here, so similar to Cacti (New World only) in appearance, are from Africa and are an example of parallel evolution. Edit: love the vid........henceforth I shall pronounce Cacti as "kak-tee". Thanx
Well, the video is about language, not genetic classification. In everyday speech almost no one would stop and object if you call _aloe_ and _agave_ cactuses, even though that's wrong from a genetic classification standpoint. Also the word cactus was first used by a Greek philosopher in the classical period to refer to a spiny plant - which I'd think you'd agree most likely would not be in the scientific family Cactacae...
@@oivinf honesty you're right most people wouldn't care but knowing the difference can help; most, if not all, euphorbia produce a latex that's harmful and irritating to the skin and (mildly) toxic if ingested, while I don't know of any cactus species that is poisonous.
Astronomer: I'm cataloguing nebulas Pedant: *scoff* don't you mean 'nebulae'? Astronomer: If you insist on using correct Latin in an English sentence, it's accusative plural here, which would be...nebulas!
With your explanation about "data" meaning "given", I realised that it's actually the meaning of the French word for "data", "donnée". Also, I remembered that in Czech, "to give" is the verb "dát", which probably comes from the same root. So it the word "doma" for "home". Which leads me to wonder how many slavic words kept a form close to latin and why : is it because of latin influence or because of a shared root in PIE.
Люку, мені дуже подобається, що Ви робите. Ви надихнули мене вивчати латину і більш детально цікавитися античним світом. Красне дякую і бажаю якомога більше досягнень, щастя та наснаги!
I have a couple of science degrees and for me some plurals depend on what the singular refers too. Radio antennas and insect antennae. If "index" refers to a card index or its computer equivalent, its plural is indexes. If "index" is a position (2nd item has a index of 2) its plural is indices.
In Romanian supposedly we're supposed to have different plurals for biological virus and computer virus. Though nowadays everyone is using the computer virus plural for both. Frankly, I'm tempted to too, because the biological virus plural sounds terrible to my ear.
My favorite pet peeve is the word "visa" (pl. "visas"). Even in my native German we retain the original singular "visum" and the plural "visa", so it always annoys the heck out of me when an English speaker uses it '''wrongly'''
Hehe, I understand how you feel. Well it could be wrong, if English “visa” were the plural of neuter “vīsum,” but I don’t think it is: en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/visa Evidently we took it from Latin used in French “charta vīsa,” the paper that has been seen. Using “documentum vīsum” or indeed “diplōma vīsum” (diplōma commeātūs is the ancient term) would render the neuter, and then the masculine “visto” in Italian. Thanks for the comment!
@@polyMATHY_Luke i had the same reaction. Aren't the original Latin "visa" and "vīsum" verb conjugations and not nouns, plural or otherwise? If so, there is no obviously "correct" plural or singular when they are converted to nouns in other languages.
Pretty sure that word actually comes from french, and not latin tho. As such is a cognate of that very word in, for example, Spanish. I'm pretty sure the German one is a latinization
I don't know how pertinent my comment will be, but I have noticed you pronounce words that begin with "wh" as "hw" (e.g. hwat, hwich, hwen) and it is quite unusual (at least for me, a non native english speaker) and had me questioning whether it is a regional thing, a "fancier" speech, some form of hypercorrection, me who never noticed how common that is or if it is your own idiolect. Either way ut's kind of cool and makes me thing of old english when they probably said "hwæt" Great video as always and great channel(s)
Thanks! It’s not a hypercorrection, which would mean it’s incorrect, but it is old fashioned. Distinguishing “witch” from “which” was how the majority of native English speakers spoke until just a few decades ago, and over the years while practicing older accents in English history, I decided to change my speech deliberately since I like to un-merge mergers where possible. It’s only recently that I have begun to do this publicly. There are still many tens of millions of native English speakers in Western and Southern US as well as Scotland and Northern England who do this natively.
@@polyMATHY_Luke That aspiration is pretty standard in my dialect of Hiberno (Irish) English too, and is something that often gets pointed out to me now that I'm not living there
In math, it’s interesting how some of these common plurals end up getting singularized as if they were of English origin. I’ve heard many math teachers say “parenthese” /pəˈɹɛnθəsiː/ as the singular of “parentheses” in stead of “parenthesis”. Another common one is “vertice” /ˈvɚtɪsiː/ as the singular of “vertices” in stead of “vertex”. It always bothers me a tiny bit to hear these, but I also recognize that it’s a normal part of language change.
You have to admit tho. Talking about a "vertice" in english es FAAAR more reasonable, easy to understand, and it even comes closest to modern romance descendents of that very word like "vertice" in Spanish. Vertex is by far more widespread, at least in the work of computer graphics, and I doubt that would ever change, but allowing some "vertice"s to come around is not a bad idea
We call lunar maria, σεληνιακές θάλασσες (pl.), lunar mare = σεληνιακή θάλασσα (sing.). Interestingly, there's also an Ocean on the moon, Oceanus Procellarum = Ωκεανός των Καταιγίδων
A quip I once made on this topic: I avoid the problem of whether to say ‘stadiums’ or ‘stadia’ by simply using the word ‘arenae’ With regards to numbers of feet, it’s interesting the different forms we have in English: biped or quadruped, but tripod or hexapod. While octopus, octopod, octoped, and even octopode are all in Wiktionary as valid words (albeit rare in some instances).
Mind blown! I just realized where the hat accent comes from in the french word "bâton" which means "rod". The k just disappeared! In the french language, letters that go silent leave small remnants in certain words, usually as a hat accent (such as in "pâte" - for "pasta", "île" for "insula" which gave the silent s in the english word "island", or "gâteau" which derives from "gastel", the old-frankish word for "cake"). I just never realized bacterium and rods would share so much in common despite the now obvious etymology (and similarities in shape). Thank you for this sudden realization Luke!
@@polyMATHY_Luke thanks for the correction! Studying languages can be frustrating at times, since you sometimes think you just figured something out but in fact merely stumbled on a false friend or a simple coincidence.
Just to note: The word Isle has etymology with insula, but the word island is unrelated, coming directly as a germanic word. The S was added because of insula but it's funny because the word island has nothing to do with the word insula 😂
Very interesting, data has a cognate in Russian, where "to give" is "davat' " (давать) so data can be translated as "dahni-e" (данные) or "the givens."
Interesting video. I didn't know a lot of things about that like bacterium and bacteria. English still remains influeced by Roman culture. Grātias summās!
When I first saw octopodes, it was written down and I assumed it had three syllables. It sounds even cooler with four syllables and rhyming with those other Greek words, though!
In surveying, a datum is a standard for referencing horizontal or vertical positions. The plural of "datum" in this sense is "datums". So I have 65 data about a lot, all in the same horizontal and vertical datums.
We use datum like this in Greece as well. We don't have a Greek word for geodetic datums, but we do for data (δεδομένα literrary things that have been given)
I've never made the connection between octopus and polypus before. But thinking about polypus, we have the English word "polyp" referring to the stalk-like phase of a medusa (jellyfish).
data's a plural? never knew that! interestingly, although i normally use indices as a plural for index, i often use indexes when talking about loops in programming. i didn't know i was doing that!
It's so funny having even a modicum of experience with Latin/Greek phonology when talking science, especially astronomy. I had to take a general education astronomy class and every time a Latin word would come up, I'd chuckle as the students or professor attempted the pronunciation. It was all in good fun of course, I don't expect anyone to learn the historical pronunciations of these words, as that would be immaterial to their chosen academic field, but it is endearing.
First of all, thank you for your videos. For me, an Italian living in England with a 6y/o son going to primary school, the struggle is real. He watches many Netflix shows where plurals are build and pronounced the American way, then he learns some stuff in school, and then he corrects me when I answer his questions using the correct Latin plurals and pronounciations. I ultimately have to concede and tell him that whatever his teacher says is correct, as it's more important that he's motivated to learn from her. On a more personal point, I really truly suffer when English speakers try to use -ae plurals. Even in the example you give at 3:09 for "antennae", if you say that with an English pronounciation I hear three vowel sounds "aei" which is extremely cacophonic and uselessly long. It has to do with the inability of most English speaker to stop on a "e" sound, more or less like when they say "Latin is not my forte", adding a long "i" sound after the "e". I do appreciate that more Italian and Latin words are used, but my brain boils when they are brutalised that way. I guess it's the same a well-spoken English person feels about the "intrusive r", something else I truly hate. Oh, the pain!
It feels like English is one of the few languages that actually bothers to import plural forms with its nouns from other languages. For example, in my native Croatian, there is a somewhat complicated process of generating the nominative singular from the Latin nominative singular, but once that's done native grammar takes over.
Thanks Luke, very cool. On an unrelated note, how about a video on why Italian is considered to be several different languages while German is not, even if some dialects are not mutually intelligible?
This will be interesting. I will listen to it carefully and learn. This is the best kind of content to watch and listen while doing stuff as you, care Luce (or Care Rufe), are just talking, therefore being more stimulating for the senses, while one is focused on the current task, be it eating, cleaning or doing laundry.
There's a Finnish group called Raskasta Joulua that sings heavy metal versions of Christmas songs, and they just released a new album with "Gaudete!" as the opening track sung by a choir. I'd be curious to know what you'd think about it.
What about "opera". Was that originally plural. In the 17 century, music literature did use the word "opus". Did a collection of "opus"-es in time become "opera"?
Great note! I forgot to insert this at the opportune time in the video. Opera npl as also made into a singular fem noun even in Classical Latin with a similar meaning
I was watching a medical show after watching this, and a doctor said "encephalitis/encephalitides" in it. I never had a reason to talk about more than one encephalitis before, myself, so I'd never thought of that one. But in general, I agree that it's fine to follow the rules of the language being spoken, because that tends to be how languages work. English is over here just sucking up pieces of other languages as usual.
OED is not the authority on the English language (because no institution is). It’s just what Oxford recommends, but otherwise has no impact on anything. Thanks, I’m glad you liked it.
@@polyMATHY_Luke I very much adhere to the "no institution" thing and am in favor of using the original Greek transliterated form. Though Google has 996k results for "octopodes" and 7990k for "octopuses", which is quite a statistical difference.
@@deutschermichel5807 LARP is an activity, "Live-Action Role Playing", where people dress up in usually medieval or renaissance era clothing and re-enact scenarios from those times, like village life, battles, etc. From there, people have creating the verb "larp" or "larping" to refer to role-playing in general.
I've always learnt the feminine plural of Latin words AE is pronounced as "ee" or "/i:/" in English, even though we all know it's just ae in Latin. Whereas "I" as the plural of "US" is pronounced "/ai/" in English. Also A as plural of "UM" is just a schwa LOL. Es as plural of Is sounds "/i:z/"
I hate it so much when I say cactuses or octupuses and someone says "well actually it's cacti". It's not really a set in stone rule and unless you've properly studied Latin then and how Latin words have been borrowed into English then you don't really have the authority to say how it's supposed to be pronounced or made plural!
As with "octopus", I heard a doctor on TH-cam describe different "arthritides". I also found it strange that the first "i" is long in "arthritis", but it is short in "arthritides".
Octopus are normally only observed solo in the wild. So there's never a bunch of "octopus" just hanging around each other hence there's no need a for a plural. I'd use a plural marker in front of the word octopus if I were talking about more than one!
4:30 Let's consult the entomology? lol I'm not sure if I'm hearing it wrong (the automated captions do put it down as "etymology", but I'm pretty sure I hear an N in there.
I like your videos very knowledgeable. What is your background in Latin? Where did you get your training and I was always willing to learn Latin but there’s no good place to pick it up. If you don’t mind me asking where I can learn.
...Taken from Latin into Old English, or from Greek into Latin into Old English? Most of what Ive seen so-far in the beginning of the video, I believe they already existed in Greek. For example, "Athens" (it is plural), was in ancient times "AΘΗΝΑΙ" (plural) and (later) in Latin "Athenae".
now i want to see a modern scifi series where some intrepid latin speakers explore and describe distant worlds. like dr. who and star trek but for learning ancient languages!
I stop meetings at work when someone pronounces "emphemerides" to rhyme with insecticides. (space industry in Houston) Oh yeah.. next powerpoint I give starts with an "Agendum " !
By the way, ὀκτώπους or ὀκτάπους is Ancient Greek, the Modern Greek word for the mollusc, is χταπόδι /xta'poði/ which is the aphetism (a fancy way to describe a word after the omission of an initial unstressed vowel) of the Medieval Greek ὀκταπόδιον, the neuter diminutive of the ancient feminine (usually) word. Ὀκταπόδιον > χταπόδι with dissimilation
I've always used and heard STATUS QUO in Latin America. But recently I was corrected by a Spaniard that it should be STATU QUO using the accusative. Grammatically I still believe that it should be the former in the nominative like its use in English. What would be your expert opinion?
Well, I don’t mind variety of forms. But the Spaniard was somehow misinformed, since “status quō ante” is an often-used phrase in various European languages. It can’t be easily pluralized, since it’s not a noun but a whole phrase. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_phrases_(S)#status_quo_ante For short, most people say “status quo”
There's a language pedant / classicist / idiot in my office who insists that 'stadia' is the plural of 'stadium' in English. What he doesn't understand is that when a foreign word enters English, it adopts the English way of pluralisation, which, as you have described, is usually through adding an 's'. One thing I've noticed about classicists is their insistence on applying Latin grammar to English (for instance, not ending sentences with prepositions, or not splitting infinitives). Why on earth does anyone think that English needs to take on the rules of Latin..?
A different take: why should we even keep the _nominative_ form when the living descendants of Latin overwhelmingly kept the _accusative_ forms instead? By that logic pluralizing "antenna" as "antennas" not only would be consistent with usual English plurals but also match the accusative plural form of the noun. I don't really imagine anyone saying "cactos" as a plural alternative to "cactus" (which might alternatively be "cactum") while "octopodes" would actually remain unchanged. By the way, English aside, is there even a good reason why Latin nouns are always quoted in nominative? It seems to me that accusatives would be a better pick when learning Latin, both because they are closer to inherited forms in Romance and because they show differences in paradigms such as vocem vs noctem, which decline very differently despite their nominative forms vox and nox being so similar.
Easily explained considering the fact than most of the mentioned words are Greeks in origin. English has kept their Greek plural. All these plurals make perfect sense if you speak Greek because it's the words we (Greeks) use even today. Of course that does not apply for latin words as datum-data or forum-fora. Btw what is the correct plural for nexus?
It's fourth declension. To make it plural in the nominative, just make the final *u* a long vowel: into into into Interesting, a few other words follow a similar pattern, like Sanskrit *prana:* into And, in case you're wondering, the plural of any Japanese noun remains unchanged, as with related Chinese languages: remains remains remains remains For an Esperanto loanword, in the rare case that one is ever used, the plural is formed by making the final *o* into a diphthong: into into into into I went off into tangents again. Anyway, to answer your question, just make the final *u* into a long vowel. Hope it helps.
We should decline latin words according to their declensions and using Old English case government. So we should say: -The cactus is there. -The cacti are there. -I have a cactum. -I have two cactos. -I give the cacto water. -I give the cactis water. -I like the cacti flower. -I like all cactorum flowers!
Quando sento cose come "i followers" e "due computers" mi sanguinano le orecchie. In generale non mi piacciono così tanto gli anglicismi non adattati, ma se proprio dobbiamo usarli almeno possiamo usarli bene!?
I am still hung up on the question of whether "data" should be used as an uncountable noun or as a plural. what do you do if the textbooks don't agree?
Hello, I have an video idea for you: Reviewing the Scaramouche boss theme (it is in latin) from genshin impact. Thanks for always making amazing videos ♥️
Regardless of what words SHOULD do when taken into English, Japanese words too often wind up sounding very strange when English pluralization is applied. There are some that work (“Katanas”, “Tycoons”) but things like “samurais”, “sushis”, “gyozas”, “mangas” just feel wrong.
![[UNCUT]“ฅนตื่นธรรม”ปะทะ“หมอปลา-ปู่มหามุนี-อั๋นโอกิ”สะเทือนกระทรวงเวทมนตร์ Iคนดังนั่งเคลียร์I10 ตค.67](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/peMD_SAkwNc/mqdefault.jpg)
A Roman walks into a bar and says: "I would like one martinus."
Bartender says "A martinus? You mean martini?"
Roman says "no, I'll just have one"
An octopod , gastropod and a pteropod collectively slither and/or fly into a bar...
🤣🤣🤣🤣
A Roman walks into a bar and asks for 5 beers, and raises only two fingers.
✌️
@@HasufelyArod That one I don't get. Give me a small hint to help me work it out.
@@HweolRidda he lost 3 fingers in battle
Seeing you do those hand gestures so close to the cactus like that triggered some deep primal anxiety in me
Hehe thanks for your concern 🌵
Isn't it something more like Euphorbia trigona?
@@jakubolszewski8284 o que isso?
Dr. Polaski - "Data, Data, what's the difference?"
Data - "One is my name; the other is not."
Very nice! I almost inserted that scene but decided against it at the last minute
this is simultaneously tongue in cheek and absolutely genuine, but i must say that the erroneous latinisation of processes (and indeed premises) has for long deeply enraged me, especially because, for those who tend to use it, they use it in academic, formal, or generally educational settings. it is therefore a deep catharsis that you mention it in this video luke; my thanks.
and by the by, i will definitely be considering enrolling in the old english course of ancient language institute.
It’s so nice to hear that someone else emphasizes with one of my biggest pet peeves! Haha. I have long wanted to make a video “rant” specifically about “process-eeze” but this was a good time to plug it in. “Enraged” is the right word! Hahah. Thanks for the comment
You'll both be pleased to hear that PRO-sess-iz is standard in the UK (at least until US culture has obliterated ours): you might consider moving here. :-)
4:53 The Latin 'Octopodes' reminds me Sanskrit's 'Aṣṭāpadi', which also mean eight legged. By the way 'Aṣṭa' mean eight and 'Padi' mean legs with a plural!
amazing
Yes i see it so clearly when you write it
Sanskrit is related to Indo-European language
@@maryocecilyo3372 no. Sanskrit IS an Indo-European language
I'm a physical therapist and some anatomical terminoloy stemming from Latin retain the -ae and -i ending plural forms (one scapula, two scapulae, one malleolus, two malleoli, one vertebra, twelve vertebrae, one multifidus, many multifidi, etc. etc.). As a student in PT school 7 years ago I always wondered why these were like this, and now as a language enthusiast I see why!
Fabulous! Yes, I intend to make a video on muscle and bone names
@@polyMATHY_Luke I've been trying to learn EVERY bone in the human body by its Latin name. It would be so fun to have a complete video about it. Although it's really hard to nail down exactly every bone since some bones are practically called the same and are generalized as one by many videos on yt and sites. It would be nerdy but really fun to know all these by heart (in Latin ofc). A nice entry to perhaps step into biology in the future. Maybe add mnemonics or literal translations since they are somewhat logically/comprehensibly derived
@@polyMATHY_Luke Ooh that would be fun to watch! I teach medical terminology for medical secretaries, so then I can share the video with them 😍
Every single doctor who has discussed our son’s Situs Inversus (SEE-toos In-VEHR-soos) has horribly butchered it as “SY-tis In-VRR-sis”).
One of my favorites to whip out is one stadium becoming multiple stadia
Polypus: in spanish we have "pulpo", it's kind of obvious now that you showed polypus, but I never thought of it since it's a bit disguised, while english's Octopus always seemed very straightforward to me
In portuguese it is "polvo", polypus -> pulpo -> polvo. Very interesting!
and in French "poulpe", although it is more common to say "pieuvre".
Ahh yes, in Italian it's Polpo
(Which I know from Jojo lol)
Very interesting camera angles and motion. Kudos to your camera and editing crew.
I need to add that the feminization and singularization of Latin plural neuter terms doesn't happen only on English and Romance language! "Agenda" or "Ατζέντα" is also singular and feminine in Greek! That's just awesome!
This video could not have come out at a better time! I've been complaining about pronouncing plurals of Greek words in English to my coworkers recently. We make satellites, so we talk about ephemerides regularly (pronounced e-phe-MER-i-des). However, every other time I've heard someone say "octopodes," it's always with three syllables (OC-to-podes) rather than four, making me more likely to say e-PHEM-e-rides as four syllables rather than five. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this way of importing Greek plurals into English versus your more "correct" pronunciation used in the video.
you should pronounce sattelites like sa-te-li-tes
I'm with you. There is some aerospace academic department -- I think Perdue or Embry-Riddle turning out BS graduates that pronounce "ephemerides" like it rhymes with insecticides.
Si
P O 3
Wife got me with this and idk why. She heard you say "I'm Luke, and this is PolýMATHY." Right after she said "I'm Luke, and this is my father."
Lol
I love this video, as it touches so many different topics I'm interested in and etymologies (etymologia) (
I’m delighted
Possibly the best explanation on this topic I’ve ever seen!
That’s very kind. I’m sure there are better. This is just my take
I tend to say Octopi bc I think it sounds better personally, but I've also heard octopus (ie, no change, like "moose"), octopuses, and octopodes, and as a native english speaker, they all sound equally grammatical to me. Whether or not a plural form is etymologically "correct" matters a lot less to me than that it's understandable. I actually really love etymologically "incorrect" plurals because of how they demonstrate the role of pattern recognition in language evolution.
Of the two English dictionaries I most use, Merriam-Webster (American) says the plural of octopus is octopuses or octopi, but Oxford English Dictionary (British) says the plural is octopodes or, if anglicized, octopuses. Ever since learning of "octopodes" (maybe 25 or 30 years ago) I've preferred it. Amazingly, "octopodes" actually occurred in an American comic strip (Pogo) on June 12, 1954, despite the strip's usual preference for mangled English such as "octopots" and "octopockles" (e.g. Oct. 17, 1954 -- a horribobble use of scienterrific langridge).
Those are not Cacti (Family Cactaceae) at 1:12, but Euphorbias (Family Euphorbiaceae), a diverse group of mostly succulent plants found in the hotter parts of the world. Those here, so similar to Cacti (New World only) in appearance, are from Africa and are an example of parallel evolution.
Edit: love the vid........henceforth I shall pronounce Cacti as "kak-tee". Thanx
Well, the video is about language, not genetic classification. In everyday speech almost no one would stop and object if you call _aloe_ and _agave_ cactuses, even though that's wrong from a genetic classification standpoint. Also the word cactus was first used by a Greek philosopher in the classical period to refer to a spiny plant - which I'd think you'd agree most likely would not be in the scientific family Cactacae...
@@oivinf honesty you're right most people wouldn't care but knowing the difference can help; most, if not all, euphorbia produce a latex that's harmful and irritating to the skin and (mildly) toxic if ingested, while I don't know of any cactus species that is poisonous.
I had no idea. Thank you for the precision!
It's euphorbin' time
As Diego the puppet
Agenda is a collective term in English since there is a list of things to discuss
1. Item a
2. Item b
Etc
Likewise Addendum is a list of corrections
Absolutely love this channel
Astronomer: I'm cataloguing nebulas
Pedant: *scoff* don't you mean 'nebulae'?
Astronomer: If you insist on using correct Latin in an English sentence, it's accusative plural here, which would be...nebulas!
Lol.
With your explanation about "data" meaning "given", I realised that it's actually the meaning of the French word for "data", "donnée". Also, I remembered that in Czech, "to give" is the verb "dát", which probably comes from the same root. So it the word "doma" for "home". Which leads me to wonder how many slavic words kept a form close to latin and why : is it because of latin influence or because of a shared root in PIE.
Indo-European. Dom on the other hand is used for God's house (church building) in German.
Люку, мені дуже подобається, що Ви робите. Ви надихнули мене вивчати латину і більш детально цікавитися античним світом. Красне дякую і бажаю якомога більше досягнень, щастя та наснаги!
I have a couple of science degrees and for me some plurals depend on what the singular refers too. Radio antennas and insect antennae. If "index" refers to a card index or its computer equivalent, its plural is indexes. If "index" is a position (2nd item has a index of 2) its plural is indices.
I make exactly the same distinction. I was wondering if it was just me; good to know there are more of us out there!
In Romanian supposedly we're supposed to have different plurals for biological virus and computer virus. Though nowadays everyone is using the computer virus plural for both. Frankly, I'm tempted to too, because the biological virus plural sounds terrible to my ear.
My favorite pet peeve is the word "visa" (pl. "visas"). Even in my native German we retain the original singular "visum" and the plural "visa", so it always annoys the heck out of me when an English speaker uses it '''wrongly'''
Hehe, I understand how you feel. Well it could be wrong, if English “visa” were the plural of neuter “vīsum,” but I don’t think it is: en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/visa
Evidently we took it from Latin used in French “charta vīsa,” the paper that has been seen. Using “documentum vīsum” or indeed “diplōma vīsum” (diplōma commeātūs is the ancient term) would render the neuter, and then the masculine “visto” in Italian.
Thanks for the comment!
@@polyMATHY_Luke i had the same reaction. Aren't the original Latin "visa" and "vīsum" verb conjugations and not nouns, plural or otherwise? If so, there is no obviously "correct" plural or singular when they are converted to nouns in other languages.
@@polyMATHY_Luke continuum and continuums.
Pretty sure that word actually comes from french, and not latin tho. As such is a cognate of that very word in, for example, Spanish. I'm pretty sure the German one is a latinization
@@HweolRidda "visa" and "visum" are inflections of the past participle of "videre" which means "to see"
I don't know how pertinent my comment will be, but I have noticed you pronounce words that begin with "wh" as "hw" (e.g. hwat, hwich, hwen) and it is quite unusual (at least for me, a non native english speaker) and had me questioning whether it is a regional thing, a "fancier" speech, some form of hypercorrection, me who never noticed how common that is or if it is your own idiolect. Either way ut's kind of cool and makes me thing of old english when they probably said "hwæt"
Great video as always and great channel(s)
Thanks!
It’s not a hypercorrection, which would mean it’s incorrect, but it is old fashioned. Distinguishing “witch” from “which” was how the majority of native English speakers spoke until just a few decades ago, and over the years while practicing older accents in English history, I decided to change my speech deliberately since I like to un-merge mergers where possible. It’s only recently that I have begun to do this publicly.
There are still many tens of millions of native English speakers in Western and Southern US as well as Scotland and Northern England who do this natively.
@@polyMATHY_Luke Fascinating! Didn't know about it, always good to speak clearly. I'll try to adopt it into my speech too
@@polyMATHY_Luke That aspiration is pretty standard in my dialect of Hiberno (Irish) English too, and is something that often gets pointed out to me now that I'm not living there
In math, it’s interesting how some of these common plurals end up getting singularized as if they were of English origin. I’ve heard many math teachers say “parenthese” /pəˈɹɛnθəsiː/ as the singular of “parentheses” in stead of “parenthesis”. Another common one is “vertice” /ˈvɚtɪsiː/ as the singular of “vertices” in stead of “vertex”. It always bothers me a tiny bit to hear these, but I also recognize that it’s a normal part of language change.
You have to admit tho. Talking about a "vertice" in english es FAAAR more reasonable, easy to understand, and it even comes closest to modern romance descendents of that very word like "vertice" in Spanish.
Vertex is by far more widespread, at least in the work of computer graphics, and I doubt that would ever change, but allowing some "vertice"s to come around is not a bad idea
Wonderful explanation.
And I like octopodes for the plural 😃
I do too. Thanks
We call lunar maria, σεληνιακές θάλασσες (pl.), lunar mare = σεληνιακή θάλασσα (sing.). Interestingly, there's also an Ocean on the moon, Oceanus Procellarum = Ωκεανός των Καταιγίδων
Greek is wonderful for this
A quip I once made on this topic:
I avoid the problem of whether to say ‘stadiums’ or ‘stadia’ by simply using the word ‘arenae’
With regards to numbers of feet, it’s interesting the different forms we have in English: biped or quadruped, but tripod or hexapod. While octopus, octopod, octoped, and even octopode are all in Wiktionary as valid words (albeit rare in some instances).
Mind blown! I just realized where the hat accent comes from in the french word "bâton" which means "rod". The k just disappeared! In the french language, letters that go silent leave small remnants in certain words, usually as a hat accent (such as in "pâte" - for "pasta", "île" for "insula" which gave the silent s in the english word "island", or "gâteau" which derives from "gastel", the old-frankish word for "cake"). I just never realized bacterium and rods would share so much in common despite the now obvious etymology (and similarities in shape).
Thank you for this sudden realization Luke!
Right! Though in the case of bâton it’s an ‘s’ that fell out: en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/bastone
@@polyMATHY_Luke thanks for the correction! Studying languages can be frustrating at times, since you sometimes think you just figured something out but in fact merely stumbled on a false friend or a simple coincidence.
Just to note: The word Isle has etymology with insula, but the word island is unrelated, coming directly as a germanic word. The S was added because of insula but it's funny because the word island has nothing to do with the word insula 😂
Very interesting, data has a cognate in Russian, where "to give" is "davat' " (давать) so data can be translated as "dahni-e" (данные) or "the givens."
interesting. a 'Davat' in the colloquial urdu / hindi means to invite over people for a dinner (as in to give them a meal)
Good video and interesting, as always; thanx
Thanks for watching!
Interesting video. I didn't know a lot of things about that like bacterium and bacteria. English still remains influeced by Roman culture. Grātias summās!
I like being able to use several different plural forms and pronunciations. It allows a lot of word play and poetic license.
When I first saw octopodes, it was written down and I assumed it had three syllables. It sounds even cooler with four syllables and rhyming with those other Greek words, though!
Indeed!
Always interesting. Thank you for educating me Luke.
Thank you for your Service Captain. And thanks so much for this!
In surveying, a datum is a standard for referencing horizontal or vertical positions. The plural of "datum" in this sense is "datums". So I have 65 data about a lot, all in the same horizontal and vertical datums.
Indeed, this convention is often observed.
We use datum like this in Greece as well. We don't have a Greek word for geodetic datums, but we do for data (δεδομένα literrary things that have been given)
i dont like it lol
I spent about half an hour debating with a friend whether its octopodes or octopi. glad to know it can be octopuses as well! (*shudder*)
I've never made the connection between octopus and polypus before. But thinking about polypus, we have the English word "polyp" referring to the stalk-like phase of a medusa (jellyfish).
I hadn’t either!
data's a plural? never knew that!
interestingly, although i normally use indices as a plural for index, i often use indexes when talking about loops in programming. i didn't know i was doing that!
It's so funny having even a modicum of experience with Latin/Greek phonology when talking science, especially astronomy. I had to take a general education astronomy class and every time a Latin word would come up, I'd chuckle as the students or professor attempted the pronunciation. It was all in good fun of course, I don't expect anyone to learn the historical pronunciations of these words, as that would be immaterial to their chosen academic field, but it is endearing.
Woohoo - another awesome video, thanks Luke!
And my thanks to ALI! 📖
First of all, thank you for your videos. For me, an Italian living in England with a 6y/o son going to primary school, the struggle is real. He watches many Netflix shows where plurals are build and pronounced the American way, then he learns some stuff in school, and then he corrects me when I answer his questions using the correct Latin plurals and pronounciations. I ultimately have to concede and tell him that whatever his teacher says is correct, as it's more important that he's motivated to learn from her.
On a more personal point, I really truly suffer when English speakers try to use -ae plurals. Even in the example you give at 3:09 for "antennae", if you say that with an English pronounciation I hear three vowel sounds "aei" which is extremely cacophonic and uselessly long. It has to do with the inability of most English speaker to stop on a "e" sound, more or less like when they say "Latin is not my forte", adding a long "i" sound after the "e". I do appreciate that more Italian and Latin words are used, but my brain boils when they are brutalised that way. I guess it's the same a well-spoken English person feels about the "intrusive r", something else I truly hate. Oh, the pain!
Interesting conversations you must be having with your 6yo.
It feels like English is one of the few languages that actually bothers to import plural forms with its nouns from other languages. For example, in my native Croatian, there is a somewhat complicated process of generating the nominative singular from the Latin nominative singular, but once that's done native grammar takes over.
Thanks Luke, very cool.
On an unrelated note, how about a video on why Italian is considered to be several different languages while German is not, even if some dialects are not mutually intelligible?
"You see octopi--"
"Octopedes"
"Octopedes nuts"
This will be interesting.
I will listen to it carefully and learn.
This is the best kind of content to watch and listen while doing stuff as you, care Luce (or Care Rufe), are just talking, therefore being more stimulating for the senses, while one is focused on the current task, be it eating, cleaning or doing laundry.
I maria lunari, mi sento onorata! 😄 Video molto interessante, Luke!
Grazie, Maria! 🤍
There's a Finnish group called Raskasta Joulua that sings heavy metal versions of Christmas songs, and they just released a new album with "Gaudete!" as the opening track sung by a choir. I'd be curious to know what you'd think about it.
What about "opera". Was that originally plural.
In the 17 century, music literature did use the word "opus".
Did a collection of "opus"-es in time become "opera"?
Great note! I forgot to insert this at the opportune time in the video. Opera npl as also made into a singular fem noun even in Classical Latin with a similar meaning
I have noticed that a lot of English speakers use Greek plurals, such as "phenomena", as singular
Yes, I regard these as incorrect, unacceptably so for speakers of essentially any education level
mereology: "Hold my beers"
Thanks for posting Luke!
I was watching a medical show after watching this, and a doctor said "encephalitis/encephalitides" in it. I never had a reason to talk about more than one encephalitis before, myself, so I'd never thought of that one. But in general, I agree that it's fine to follow the rules of the language being spoken, because that tends to be how languages work. English is over here just sucking up pieces of other languages as usual.
Last time I checked the OED the plural was exclusively octopuses. But what an informative video thank you!
OED is not the authority on the English language (because no institution is). It’s just what Oxford recommends, but otherwise has no impact on anything. Thanks, I’m glad you liked it.
@@polyMATHY_Luke I very much adhere to the "no institution" thing and am in favor of using the original Greek transliterated form. Though Google has 996k results for "octopodes" and 7990k for "octopuses", which is quite a statistical difference.
"English isn't one language, it's three languages in a trench coat pretending to be one"
- Guguletu Mhlungu
It's a Germanic language that presents itself as a wannabe French daughter language and gets pompous by larping as Latin.
@@tylere.8436 What does larping mean?
@@deutschermichel5807 LARPing is when a group of people dress and pretends to be fictional characters.
@@deutschermichel5807 LARP is an activity, "Live-Action Role Playing", where people dress up in usually medieval or renaissance era clothing and re-enact scenarios from those times, like village life, battles, etc. From there, people have creating the verb "larp" or "larping" to refer to role-playing in general.
@@jerotoro2021 I tend to fall victim to Internet slang from time to time.
In Polish we simply call the maria "morza [księżycowe]", literally "[lunar] seas".
It's pretty striking how you seem a lot more sure of the Latin pronunciations than the English ones.
That's the nature of English: lot's of imprecision with these sorts of things.
Would love to see an explanation of the Latin graffiti scene from Life of Brian 😃
Here you go th-cam.com/video/UfH6gjxTTgE/w-d-xo.html
I've always learnt the feminine plural of Latin words AE is pronounced as "ee" or "/i:/" in English, even though we all know it's just ae in Latin. Whereas "I" as the plural of "US" is pronounced "/ai/" in English. Also A as plural of "UM" is just a schwa LOL. Es as plural of Is sounds "/i:z/"
Those choices are all find sounding to me.
AE can rhyme with “may” in English, though /i/ is fine too
Yeah, I guess that's why some British accents still pronounce "I" as an "e" in some words.
I think I have three or four pronunciations of the digraph 'ae'.
It’s a common issue, I think
This will make amazing content to watch while I cooke my own lunch.
Funnily enough, in Bulgarian, the word for octopus is "Oktopod"
Some words I can think of
Datum Data
Agendum Agenda
Index Indices
Maximum Maxima
Minimum Minima
Stadium Stadia or Stadiums
I mention most of these
I hate it so much when I say cactuses or octupuses and someone says "well actually it's cacti". It's not really a set in stone rule and unless you've properly studied Latin then and how Latin words have been borrowed into English then you don't really have the authority to say how it's supposed to be pronounced or made plural!
Indeed. I hope my video vindicates your position
As with "octopus", I heard a doctor on TH-cam describe different "arthritides". I also found it strange that the first "i" is long in "arthritis", but it is short in "arthritides".
Octopus are normally only observed solo in the wild. So there's never a bunch of "octopus" just hanging around each other hence there's no need a for a plural. I'd use a plural marker in front of the word octopus if I were talking about more than one!
Awesome video
I love these lessons, thank you so much. Happy Veterans day!
Thanks for being a channel Member! And thanks for that too
octopodes NUTS
> couldn't help myself
@1:46,
If we’re speaking English, should we say “the fruit of the cactorum”? I don’t think so, which is why I prefer to say “cactuses”.
4:30 Let's consult the entomology? lol
I'm not sure if I'm hearing it wrong (the automated captions do put it down as "etymology", but I'm pretty sure I hear an N in there.
I like your videos very knowledgeable. What is your background in Latin? Where did you get your training and I was always willing to learn Latin but there’s no good place to pick it up. If you don’t mind me asking where I can learn.
That jacket though 🔥
...Taken from Latin into Old English,
or from Greek into Latin into Old English?
Most of what Ive seen so-far in the beginning of the video, I believe they already existed in Greek. For example, "Athens" (it is plural), was in ancient times "AΘΗΝΑΙ" (plural) and (later) in Latin "Athenae".
now i want to see a modern scifi series where some intrepid latin speakers explore and describe distant worlds. like dr. who and star trek but for learning ancient languages!
I stop meetings at work when someone pronounces "emphemerides" to rhyme with insecticides. (space industry in Houston)
Oh yeah.. next powerpoint I give starts with an "Agendum " !
Haha 🚀 let me know how it goes
By the way, ὀκτώπους or ὀκτάπους is Ancient Greek, the Modern Greek word for the mollusc, is χταπόδι /xta'poði/ which is the aphetism (a fancy way to describe a word after the omission of an initial unstressed vowel) of the Medieval Greek ὀκταπόδιον, the neuter diminutive of the ancient feminine (usually) word.
Ὀκταπόδιον > χταπόδι with dissimilation
Beautiful the aphetism! 🐙
could you make a video about o fortuna pronunciation by carl orff carmina burana??
Amadeus is a cool middle name to have.
The plural of Antenna is aerials. :)
I've always used and heard STATUS QUO in Latin America. But recently I was corrected by a Spaniard that it should be STATU QUO using the accusative. Grammatically I still believe that it should be the former in the nominative like its use in English. What would be your expert opinion?
Well, I don’t mind variety of forms. But the Spaniard was somehow misinformed, since “status quō ante” is an often-used phrase in various European languages. It can’t be easily pluralized, since it’s not a noun but a whole phrase. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_phrases_(S)#status_quo_ante
For short, most people say “status quo”
11:14 I'd like to know what these ducks think about the topic being discussed in the video.
PERSONAE. In English I pronounce [-ni:], except in "dramatis personae" [-naɪ].
There's a language pedant / classicist / idiot in my office who insists that 'stadia' is the plural of 'stadium' in English. What he doesn't understand is that when a foreign word enters English, it adopts the English way of pluralisation, which, as you have described, is usually through adding an 's'. One thing I've noticed about classicists is their insistence on applying Latin grammar to English (for instance, not ending sentences with prepositions, or not splitting infinitives). Why on earth does anyone think that English needs to take on the rules of Latin..?
Yes
A different take: why should we even keep the _nominative_ form when the living descendants of Latin overwhelmingly kept the _accusative_ forms instead? By that logic pluralizing "antenna" as "antennas" not only would be consistent with usual English plurals but also match the accusative plural form of the noun. I don't really imagine anyone saying "cactos" as a plural alternative to "cactus" (which might alternatively be "cactum") while "octopodes" would actually remain unchanged.
By the way, English aside, is there even a good reason why Latin nouns are always quoted in nominative? It seems to me that accusatives would be a better pick when learning Latin, both because they are closer to inherited forms in Romance and because they show differences in paradigms such as vocem vs noctem, which decline very differently despite their nominative forms vox and nox being so similar.
Pellicula optima iucundaque est!
Grātiam tibi habeō, Dāvīd, prō commentāriō!
Easily explained considering the fact than most of the mentioned words are Greeks in origin. English has kept their Greek plural. All these plurals make perfect sense if you speak Greek because it's the words we (Greeks) use even today.
Of course that does not apply for latin words as datum-data or forum-fora.
Btw what is the correct plural for nexus?
It's fourth declension. To make it plural in the nominative, just make the final *u* a long vowel:
into
into
into
Interesting, a few other words follow a similar pattern, like Sanskrit *prana:*
into
And, in case you're wondering, the plural of any Japanese noun remains unchanged, as with related Chinese languages:
remains
remains
remains
remains
For an Esperanto loanword, in the rare case that one is ever used, the plural is formed by making the final *o* into a diphthong:
into
into
into
into
I went off into tangents again. Anyway, to answer your question, just make the final *u* into a long vowel. Hope it helps.
Don't know if you've done a video on how to pronounce the actual names & epithets of Roman gods & goddesses in Latin yet! Prego!
I am a student of history and I have a question for you how did you learn Latin? Do you recommend any website or textbook to learn to speak?
We should decline latin words according to their declensions and using Old English case government. So we should say:
-The cactus is there.
-The cacti are there.
-I have a cactum.
-I have two cactos.
-I give the cacto water.
-I give the cactis water.
-I like the cacti flower.
-I like all cactorum flowers!
Quando sento cose come "i followers" e "due computers" mi sanguinano le orecchie. In generale non mi piacciono così tanto gli anglicismi non adattati, ma se proprio dobbiamo usarli almeno possiamo usarli bene!?
I am still hung up on the question of whether "data" should be used as an uncountable noun or as a plural. what do you do if the textbooks don't agree?
I suppose you can do what suits you best. I’m comfortable saying data as a plural, but that’s me.
Ancient Greek:
Οκτάπους->Οκτάποδες
Πολύπους->Πολύποδες
Modern Greek:
Οκταπόδι/Χταπόδι->Οκταπόδια/Χταπόδια
Πολύποδας->Πολύποδες
crisis changes to crises....now I hear 'process' pronounced in the plural in the same manner. BIG MISTAKE.
I agree. I hope these weird hypercorrections die out.
Hello, I have an video idea for you:
Reviewing the Scaramouche boss theme (it is in latin) from genshin impact. Thanks for always making amazing videos ♥️
Very cute Anases!
Are you going to break out in tetrinnitus again?
Regardless of what words SHOULD do when taken into English, Japanese words too often wind up sounding very strange when English pluralization is applied. There are some that work (“Katanas”, “Tycoons”) but things like “samurais”, “sushis”, “gyozas”, “mangas” just feel wrong.
maybe we should latinize them lol
samurae, sushae
unum gyozum, unum magnum