• gnutrino@programming.dev
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    7 days ago

    Nah, level 1 is actually correct. Regardless of its etymology, octopus is an english word and should be pluralised accordingly.

      • Zwiebel@feddit.org
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        7 days ago

        It would only work the other way around. If english grammar dictates that a loan word’s original language grammar be used. Aka level 1 includes level 3. You cannot just throw some other languages grammar at english however you please

        • Viceversa@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          You cannot just throw some other languages grammar at english however you please

          … because English would steal said grammar by itself!

          • antonim@lemmy.world
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            7 days ago

            Oxen is historically a 100% English plural, just like child-children, it wasn’t loaned. (I should check, but I’m pretty sure it’s the same -en as in German plurals: das Auge, die Augen.)

            Some of these Latin plurals can survive for technical terminology. But it’s pretty much only Latin ones, due to the historical prestige. Nobody talks of Soviet apparatchiki, it’s apparatchiks.