Some of these words might make you beet red. But are the people who use them always misinformed, or is there more to the story?
Whether we like it or not, the English language is changing and will continue to change. Even though it developed from a language that had a great many rules—German grammar is a tedious thing—we’ve all but done away with many of them for the sake of convenience.
Sometimes, we add rules about how a word should behave—what it means, how to make it plural—only to have that word change entirely. But languages are defined by their speakers. So no matter how “wrong” the new change might seem, we just have to grin and bear it. Or argue to the ends of the Earth to stand on the side of correctness. That works, too.
This might seem a little vague, so we’ll look at some examples. Here are 10 controversial words that might not be as wrong as you think.
10 Octopi
It’s a common thought—and even a common teaching—that this word is correct. There’s a historical reason for that. But the most correct plural is not really “octopi” or octopodes as some socially inclined grammarians, who don’t understand that etymologies are not good small talk, would tell you.
The most “correct” plural of “octopus” is actually “octopuses.”
This is because the word “octopus” is not Latin, so the correct plural isn’t “octopi.” The word isn’t Greek either, though, so it isn’t octopodes. The word “octopus” is actually a relatively recent Latinized Greek word[1] and was coined by Carl Linnaeus, the man we call the “father of taxonomy” (the fancy animal-naming system), in the 1700s.
Given that somewhat mixed origin, it’s far safer to use the standard English system of pluralization rather than turn to the Greek or Latin.
On the other hand, these plural forms aren’t entirely incorrect either, just more controversial. The word “octopus” could be thought of as an ancestor of the Latin word polypus, whose plural is polypi. So from a certain perspective, “octopi” could be correct.
And Linnaeus himself used the plural octopodes, even while clearly understanding polypi to be the plural formed from the original word. It seems no matter which plural form you take, somebody, somewhere, will think to correct you for it.
9 Ornery
The word “ornery” is a different beast. Despite being quite difficult to spell, it isn’t a word that has accepted an unconventional spelling and the pronunciation differences are quite insignificant. Instead, this is a word that has taken on a different, regional definition that isn’t listed in most dictionaries.
When using this word, many people from the South or Midwest in the United States imagine that they’re describing a rowdy or mischievous child. It could be thought of as an endearing or affectionate term.
But this word can also cause a bit of a cultural clash. It’s often used negatively to refer to somebody who is disagreeable, stubborn, or easily upset. There are several examples spread out over the Internet’s existence of people discovering the word’s “true” meaning and then going on forums and other discussion sites to talk about their experiences, like here.[2]
Although major dictionaries don’t define this alternate use of the word, some sites, like Wiktionary, do. Wiktionary isn’t the most credible authority on any subject, though, so it may be a while before we see the popular regional variant of “ornery” officially recognized.
8 Literally
The misuse of this word is a common complaint. Some who use this word have a verbal tick, as in “I literally can’t even right now.” For others, it’s a form of hyperbole, as in “I feel literally on top of the world right now.” But whatever the case, “literally” should never be used to convey anything except an entirely, unquestionably, literally true claim.
Or that would have been true six years ago, anyway. The word “literally” was used so often in a figurative sense that the Oxford English Dictionary literally added that definition[3] in 2011.
What naysayers of this sens