Octopuses have six "arms" and two "legs"

Octopuses have six "arms" and two "legs"

news.yahoo.com

BERLIN (Reuters) - Octopuses' eight tentacles divide up into six "arms" and two "legs", a study published by a chain of commercial aquariums said on Thursday.

Octopuses are reckoned to be the world's most intelligent invertebrates and are able to use tools with their sucker-covered tentacles.

(visit the link for the full news article)

I just saw this and thought i would share. Once again it reminds me how much we are yet to understand in this world, and at the same time the weird things people are wasting money on researching.

I guess any new knowledge is almost worth the price paid for it.

Time to update our school books again.

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by SilentShadow


There go all those schoolbooks: "An octopus has eight arms..."

What worries me is something even more earth-shattering: these scientists can't even refer to the creature they're studying in correct terms. Octopi have six arms and two legs.

reply to post by pause4thought


Actually, Octopuses is the correct way to say it.

Octopus is a third declension noun in latin, therefore not subject to the -i ending at the removal of the -us.

Thank you Mrs Thomas for your brilliant teaching skills back in high school.

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Interesting find! I am going to read up on this more, it is a very cool discovery.

[edit on 8/14/08 by niteboy82]

reply to post by pause4thought
THANK YOU!!! OCTOPI!!!!!

reply to post by niteboy82


This is getting serious. Either Mrs Thomas had a sense of humour or she was even more of a clever dick than me. In the former case she derived pleasure from misleading her charges. Either way I don't like her.

According to the 'Longman Dictionary of the English Language' (a quarter of a million definitions, 1,876 pages) octopi is the traditional rendering. It has been usurped by the other version, (I won't even take it on my lips,) as a result of the dumbing down of the masses. I blame television, lack of reading, lack of breeding and Kermit the Frog.

Of course they have 6 arms and 2 legs ive always known that.
If you ever been scuba diving and you watch them they walk along the bottom on 2 legs and catch things with there arms.
And whats so wrong with OCTOPUSES ?
The spell checker likes it, a dictionary program made by 100's of people with more PHd's than any of us.
Cows Geese Sheep Lions Octopuses.....
Maybe we should call them Cye and Gee and Lyes and Shye?
For some pointless anally retentive reason.
wtf does it matter.

Matter? Why do any standards matter? It's about the gradual erosion of civilization. You start by not giving thanks for your meals and end up eating with your hands.

Many English words are taken from Latin. Whereas Latin singular nouns end in -us, the plurals end in -i. Correspondingly you may be chasing a hippopotamus, but the hippopotami are chasing you.

reply to post by niteboy82


Star for your mad Latin skills.

It really makes more sense to me for them to have 6 arms and 2 legs. They still have too many legs for me to consider eating them though. I don't eat anything with more than 4.

Good find!