I'm reading The Watchmaker of Filigree Street in which there is a mechanical octopus. It has done something in an octopus manner and the word used is 'octopused' but that doesn't look correct. Should the 's' be doubled up?
In this case I prefer the spelling chosen in the book. The double S makes me see puss, as in infectious material, and pushes my pronunciation in that direction.
I think you've got it backwards, boss. pus pʌs/ noun noun: pus a thick yellowish or greenish opaque liquid produced in infected tissue, consisting of dead white blood cells and bacteria with tissue debris and serum. puss pʊs/ noun British informal noun: puss; plural noun: pusses a cat. a playful or coquettish girl or young woman.
I agree that "octopussed" looks more correct since "puss" is pronounced liked the end of "octopus", but perhaps insofar as "-ed" is a suffix and "octopus" is just one of those words that is pronounced in a unique manner with regard to how it is spelled, "octopused" might be more correct. However, since it seems to be a made-up word, or at least a word that is not commonly used, it is likely up to the discretion of the writer. Perhaps they should have spelled it "octopusssed".
CDN/UK residents tend to use double-letters. CDN/UK, "focussed"; US, "focused". "Natasha Pulley (born 4 December 1988) is a British author." Hmmm... I retract what I said. Lol.
We (Italians) do it over boiled potatoes, haricot vert, and cherry tomatoes. Octopus is hot, salad is cold. Looks similar to yours, but are those scallops I see? Now we're talking!
Nope. All octopus. We go for the bigger ones, so when you prepare the "legs", sometimes the pieces can look a bit like scallops.
I'm inclined towards the single S, because the double S makes me want to say Octopus-sed. The single S also makes me wanna say "puss" because the vowel-consonant-E construction makes me wanna lengthen the vowel sound. Whereas -pussed with the double S makes me wanna shorten the vowel to "pus". And Octo-puss sounds kinda cute and funny and a lot more like Octopus than Octopus-sed And because it seems we're sharing delicious octopus treats...
8 and 20 legs and suckers, baked in an octopi. I don't think I could eat it though, they're such smart creatures ; the guilt 'd sour my enjoyment. On track: call me cuckoo but I'd actually like cuckoo to be a verb. As in oust, or shove out of the way. Just feels it'd be intuitively 'got' if it was used. Given it'd be my shout, I can't decide on the past tense... cuckooed or cuckood...no, the former now I've typed it out, that looks better. Are cuckoos edible? I'd have less guilt with a cuckoopi.
I'll second that. I'd also like to throw in eagle and buffalo as potential animal verbs. And a special shout out to "birddog" as a compound animal verb that exists already.
Not to mention Bull - as in 'to bull your way through' rather than "a load of" Shark - In the UK at least "to shark" is to pursue the opposite sex on a night out , also sharking and being on the shark Dog - as in either to dog someones steps, or as in dogging to watch people having sex Cat or Catting - an abbreviation of black catting -the guy who always tops your story , so called because his black cat is guaranteed to be blacker than anyone else's , alternately from tom catting as in catting about - to be promiscuous Beaver - as in beavering away, to work hard
I'd say it's probably dependent on where you're from. Also, probably on how you pluralise the word, if you don't go for 'octopi' or 'octopodes' (which is really interesting linguistically but I won't go into that). So if you go instead for the more common English ending, '-s', whether you spell it octopusses or octopuses probably shows how you'd want to spell octopussed/octopused. Right?
The New Yorker magazine, which is (for my money) the gold standard in American English usage, uses "focussed." I saw it there just the other day. As for me, I'd prefer "octopussed." "Octopused" looks like it wants to rhyme with "confused," or "infused," or "refused."
rat? As in "he ratted on me," meaning he 'told' on me. squirrel? As in "she squirreled it away with all the other stuff she'd collected over the years." crow? "The whole team crowed with laughter as I picked myself up out of the mud." snake? "We snaked through the underbrush, trying not to make any more noise."
