On Fri, 3 Apr 2009 10:18:17 +0200, Thomas Davie <tatd2@kent.ac.uk> wrote:
On 3 Apr 2009, at 09:25, Benjamin L.Russell wrote:
[...]
Or is that a logo of two octopi, one with four arms, and the other with three? Oh no, the poor octopi!
If it's an octopi, surely it should have 3.1415926... arms? Where's the 0.1415926...?
Actually, according to the Wikipedia entry for "octopus" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus), I probably should have written the plural as either "octopuses" or "octopodes":
The Oxford English Dictionary (2004 update[26]) lists octopuses, octopi and octopodes (in that order); it labels octopodes "rare", and notes that octopi derives from the mistaken assumption that octopus is a second declension Latin noun, which it is not.
Since the 3.1415926... derives from a mistaken assumption, the 0.1415926... disappears in a poof of logic. -- Benjamin L. Russell -- Benjamin L. Russell / DekuDekuplex at Yahoo dot com http://dekudekuplex.wordpress.com/ Translator/Interpreter / Mobile: +011 81 80-3603-6725 "Furuike ya, kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto." -- Matsuo Basho^