On Fake Latin Plurals

There's something about Latin. To English speakers, at least, Latin occupies a position of unimpeachable authority. Latin has come to represent an ideal of logic and rigor, which is kind of dumb. Because, like plebeian languages—like English, say—Latin was a regular language spoken by regular people. Two thousand years ago the language that would one day bewilder and bedevil schoolchildren in Europe and America was used to argue, complain, haggle, seduce, insult, cajole, and amuse. It wasn't reserved for orators, philosophers, and emperors but lived instead in the mouths and ears of ordinary people who were basically the same as you and me, the same as people in all times and places have been.

It might be this near-reverence for Latin that causes people to reach a bit and adopt plural forms that don't make any sense in English but that look Latinish. If they have the look of Latin, they might lend a little of Latin's polish and gravitas. Which might be why some people pronounce the plurals of bias and process as "biaseez" and "processeez." There are Latin (and Greek) plurals that work this way, and they can be found in English words ending in -is—like thesis and crisis—that were borrowed whole from Latin and Greek.

Another kind of fake Latin plural is the very common octopi. Octopus looks like one of those ends-in-us words that get -i plurals (words like alumnus), so it's only fair, I guess, that people really, really want to give it a Latinate plural. Never mind that it's not a Latin word. It's an English word built in the 1700s from Greek roots. The "real" Greek plural would be octopodes, which is ridiculous for an English word. Me, I prefer octopuses, which happens to be what dictionaries prefer, too. For whatever that's worth.

Bonus observation: Most English speakers only imperfectly understand Latin and Ancient Greek noun declensions (surprise!), which is why they use criteria and phenomena as singular forms.

Update (6/16/15): Today, I heard someone on NPR use phenomenon as a plural. It's chaos out there. Be careful.