That was the word Fowler's Modern English Usage. As I said, the word octopus does not derive from Latin, it is in fact from the Latinised Greek oktṓpous (ὀκτώπους), whose plural is oktṓpodes (ὀκτώποδες). But as I also said, we speak English, not Greek.
Perhaps it's not pedantry. Pedants are interested in being correct. Or am I confusing pedantry with semantics?
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