The things you find while looking up other things!

Came across this word in a cute little story about a kindergarten class's pet octopus. For clarity I'm modifying a definition found here.

hectocylus (but often rendered hectocotylis): at arm of the male octopus, specially modified to effect fertilization. After receiving the spermatophores, the arm detaches from the male and attaches itself to the female for reproductive purposes.

Nice [sic] story. I notice the author used the hypercorrective octopi instead of the proper English plural octopuses or the Graeco-Latinate plural octopodes.

Cute! Yes, I remember that we've talked about octopuses vs. octopi here before.

I often think curricula should be a hypercorrected plural, but it's not. I'd like it to be curriculums. After all, this is English and not Latin.

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
I often think curricula should be a hypercorrected plural, but it's not. I'd like it to be curriculums. After all, this is English and not Latin.

I am not sure. Hypercorrect is defined by the OED as: Of a spelling, pronunciation, or construction: falsely modelled on an apparently analogous prestigeful form. Also of a speaker using such a form.
Since curriculums is falsely modelled on the Latin curricula, it's the word curriculums which is hypercorrected, and incidentally not given as a plural in the OED.

Since curriculums is falsely modelled on the Latin curricula, it's the word curriculums which is hypercorrected

This is incorrect. (I suppose it could be an example of the British use of irony, and therefore to be taken humorously, but I'll correct it just in case any non-British English speaker comes across it and takes it for fact.) There is no form curriculums in Latin; it is not in something that could be incorrectly formed by non-standard Latin speakers. Curriculum is a second declension neuter noun; it could be either nominative or accusative. The standard plural for nouns of this class would be curricula for both cases. In English, plurals of nouns are formed by adding -(e)s to words to make them plural, so curriculums would be the standard English plural of curriculum for people who know no Latin and less Greek. A hypercorrection would be would be where instead of viruses, opuses, or corpuses, somebody used virii, opii, or corpi (all actually forms you can find in use and on the Web). Of course, those who know their Latin declensions know that the Latin plurals for those words are nothing for virus (it has no plural form in Latin because it is a non-countable noun), opera, and corpora (because the latter two are third declension neuter nouns).

Other cases of hypercorrections: admiral, the d is spurious but was inserted by people who knew that words like adventure had a d reinserted based on its Latin etymology (the word when it was borrowed from French was aventure. Admiral is not from a Latin word, but from the Arabic 'amīr al- 'command of' (where the final al is the 'the' before whatever it is the admiral commands; author has a spurious h inserted (as though it were a Greek word because Latin had no th). It comes (via French again where it had lost its c) from auctor.

quote:

the arm detaches from the male and attaches itself to the female for reproductive purposes.

Is this fun for the octopuses?

quote:

Originally posted by zmjezhd:
Since curriculums is falsely modelled on the Latin curricula, it's the word curriculums which is hypercorrected

This is incorrect. (I suppose it could be an example of the British use of irony, and therefore to be taken humorously, but I'll correct it…

Heavy, heavy.

I think one or two of us also have a smattering of Latin, but your exposition, though not beyond contention, obliterates any possible interpretation of humour or irony. Enjoyed the lesson. Thanks zmj.

zmj, but "curriculums" isn't accepted, is it? It surely isn't whereever I've been, and I dutifully write "curricula."

Of course, I did take Latin, so I suppose I am supposed to write "curricula."

My dictionary lists both curriculums and curricula.

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Originally posted by gooofy:
My dictionary lists both curriculums and curricula.

Than by all means burn it!

quote:

Originally posted by Asa Lovejoy:

quote:

Originally posted by gooofy:
My dictionary lists both curriculums and curricula.

Than by all means burn it!

Can I please come to the bonfire ?

Can I please come to the bonfire ?

This is one of the reasons why prescriptivists make me nervous. They are people who are likely to consign a book to the flames because they disagree with it. They start with books and move up to people. They are the sort who dislike being told whether they can use a word or turn of phrase (i.e., how to use language) because it is politically correct, but think nothing of telling other folks whether they can say ain't or use moot in a newer meaning. My, my, but these are sad times.

Burn Merriam-Webster and the AHD and the OED? There won't be many dictionaries left.

Gosh, I guess I shoulda followed my "burn it" with a smily emoticon! That was supposed to be sarcastic!

Asa, wandering away shaking head in disbelief

quote:

Originally posted by Asa Lovejoy:
Gosh, I guess I shoulda followed my "burn it" with a smily emoticon! That was supposed to be sarcastic!

Asa, wandering away shaking head in disbelief

I knew you were kidding. It made me laugh!

Gosh, I guess I shoulda followed my "burn it" with a smily emoticon! That was supposed to be sarcastic!

I knew you were being funny. I simply hope that Pearce was being, also. I, too, in my way, was being funny. You see how humor is more difficult to understand than Dalespeak in the year 2525.

quote:

You see how humor is more difficult to understand than Dalespeak in the year

OWWWWWWWW!!!!!!

quote:

Originally posted by zmjezhd:
Gosh, I guess I shoulda followed my "burn it" with a smily emoticon! That was supposed to be sarcastic!

I knew you were being funny. I simply hope that Pearce was being, also. I, too, in my way, was being funny. You see how humor is more difficult to understand than Dalespeak in the year 2525.

Oh dear. Yes of course I was trying to be funny, and like Asa feel like turning away in disbelief that anyone could take it seriously. I could not burn a book to save your life.