Octopus have dens that they only leave to eat and mate. they always return to their den after, and they only move every few weeks. So wouldnt that be normal behavior?
I guess he could have moved his den to the flounder tank.. but maybe he just found out where it was, and caught him before he decided where to move to. or maybe there was something about the flounder tank that made it difficult to find a good spot.
- http://belizeadventure.com/2013/08/octopus-facts/
- https://www.tonmo.com/threads/midnight-tank-escapes-fact-or-...
Edit: this is not to call you out for you story, it's very possible that this happened at CHS aquarium, I'm just wondering the origins since it's such a fascinating and strange story.
Then again, I've also had to clean up a couple (witnessed) octopus escapes, though not with the full "got out, got prey, got back in." So they are at least somewhat prone to roaming.
I would guess that Octopi just tend to do this. They really are smart and can fit through crazy small spaces.
It's hard not to speculate that the octopus had a sufficiently sophisticated model of its keepers in relation to itself (which implies self-consciousness) that it knew this.
I can come up with other theories (some territorial affinity, perhaps), and I'm sure people have. I wonder which have been tested/explored...
Different footage but a similar crazy feat:
Is it OK to feel sad about the aquarium based on this story?
Octopuses is correct by English rules.
Octopodes is correct by strict etymological Greek-origin rules.
Octopi is correct by English's pseudo-Latin cognate rules.
This is likely due to the many Anglophone schoolchildren subjected to Latin language lessons over the centuries who simply never cared about proper Latin grammar rules.
Generally speaking, octopuses is preferred by most if not all well known dictionaries in modern usage, and the pseudo-Latin cognate has fallen out of favor. I don't think it's reflective of reality to argue that all three are equivalently correct.
There is, in fact, a way to assume greater authority over the English language than the power wielded by the median speaker. The person who can inject a memorable phrase into the popular culture--whether by writing a line that is read by many, or by speaking one that is heard by many--can steer the language closer to the path they may prefer.
For all our quibbling over technical correctness, if an author or scriptwriter decides to keep "octopi" alive, all they have to do is write it, with no explanation or justification necessary.
Stam that in your rassoodock and let it digimmer. It could make you frumious or mimsy, but you will grok who the lords of language are.
The best argument for prescriptivism has less to do with authority and more to do with people who have an interest in being able to communicate clearly. A better word than "prescriptivism" might be "subscriptivism". Presumably, we subscribe to the normal rules of the English language so that we mitigate miscommunication.
Purpose matters. The person who demands that everyone use "octopuses" is just an elitist asshole. The science institution, which demands that its members conform to a precise standard of language, is just doing its job.
I saw a lecture by Peter Godfrey-Smith, the author of the book in TFA, and he also comes down on the side of "octopuses".
As far as I'm concerned octopi is correct. Screw the etymology.
The various irregular forms and tenses of the existential verb, "to be", is etymologically stitched together from at least three distinct languages.
Remnants of foreign languages certainly are welcome, though they certainly get rough treatment in comparison to their language of origin. The majority of the whole corpus is "foreign", and a significant fraction of the 1000 most commonly used "core words" are from a different branch of the linguistic tree as the official branch for English.
This is, in large part, due to the Saxon and Norman invasions.
Pseudo-Greco-Latin words are associated with higher education, because for a long time, Latin was required for higher education at English-speaking universities. Thanks to the fact that such words can be composited from a variety of common Greek and Latin roots, it remains the etymological origin of choice for newly-coined words describing new scientific knowledge. English, of course, tosses their grammar onto the tire fire, and chops up the vocabulary like a butcher disassembles a side of beef.
Length is likely just a side effect of the etymological origins.
That's sort of why I support octopi. It is predictable, idiomatic and consistent. You shouldn't have to research the origins of a word in order to pluralise it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus#Etymology_and_pluraliz...
Anyway, while I wouldn't put it like you have, I agree with the bottom line -- spread the message of "octopuses"!
https://youtu.be/wFyY2mK8pxk (Octopus - Merriam-Webster Ask the Editor)
The weird thing isn't that he went to go eat a flounder, it's that he broke back into his own tank after, leaving us scratching our head for weeks over where the flounder were going. Obviously if we came in one day to see an octopus in the flounder tank the mystery would be solved day 1.
Anyway we put carpet on the walls so his little suckers couldn't stick and let him carouse around the aquarium like some sort of aquatic monkey.