Linguistics Humor

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This is a labubu. Now there is another one. There are two _______. (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 1 month ago by antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/linguistics_humor@sh.itjust.works

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[–] Shihali@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

It's because -us is the Latin second declension nominative singular, and its nominative plural is -i. People educated enough to know the -us/-i pattern (cactus/cacti, alumnus/alumni, stimulus/stimuli) but unaware that "octopus" is Greek and has an irregular stem are likely to misapply the Latin pattern.

[–] Droggelbecher@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

I thought as much, but was never sure. Could've developed more naturally, like from Romans in Britain, for all I knew.