03.23.06

Got into a conversation with Stuff last night about words and word origins. It started innocently enough with a Big Question; what is the correct pluralization of octopus? Somewhere, in the dusty library of my mind, the head librarian started looking through her card catalogue*, and came up with octopi is not correct. This morning, running late for work (yet unable to control myself) I checked a book that I thought might have the answer.

It did. Here goes:

Octopus (meaning eight-footed) is Greek. The most excruciatingly, git'cher ass kicked, correct way to pluralize it is octopodes. However, some smarty pants at some point substituted the Latinate plural ending, -pi for the Greek -podes. Thus we got octopi. The current, preferred, plural is octopuses. The incorrect octopi has become so common that many dictionaries list it as a second choice after octopuses. (Information summarized from Woe is I, p.35, Patricia T. O'Conner, Riverhead Books, New York, 1996 ISBN 1-57322-625-4.)

Interesting thing about language, if we all start using octopi, it will eventually be correct. Dang.

Gads, words are fun.

The octopus question (herafter known as the Great Octopus Enquiry of 2006) led to the etymology of cunt.

I find it fascinating that this word remains so heavily tabooed, and that people have such a strong response to it. Me? I'm a writer. I control words, they don't control me. Much as some women cannot hear bitch without becoming insane, cunt can exponentially increase an enraged response. Amazing.

However, back to the etymology of cunt. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its first appearance in writing (c.1230 CE) was in a street name, Gropecuntelane, in London. There is a lot of speculation that relates cunt to the Welsh cwm (much-beloved of crossword puzzles writers and means valley--you can see the connection) and also to the word quaint. Which I think is lovely.

*Yes, my brain has a librarian and a card catalogue. I see her: half-glasses perched on the end of her nose, silver chain winking in the dull light form the overhead fixtures; her dark hair pulled into a severe French Twist; her cardigan draped over her shoulders; an Eton-collared, white cotton shirt; a charcoal grey pencil skirt, and crocodile pumps on her feet. She hums under her breath as she flips through the long, narrow drawers, cross-referencing and closing in on some hapless bit of knowledge.

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