Cephalopod!

Sg,

That you are doomed to be sort of a nerd was obvious from that time last year, at the zoo. We were watching the gorillas being fed. You said something like “I see a monkey”, and your mother and I, nearly in unison, replied “gorillas are apes, sweetie.”

Your descent continued this morning when you learned the word “cephalopod”. It began with you telling me that your octopus was a person, and I broke it to you that no, in fact, your octopus was not a person. Soon I was asking questions like “is Daisy a cephalopod?” You would say “no”. When asked who is a cephalopod, you said “octopus!” By the time we got to daycare, you were also admitting, when asked whether there were any others, that the squid (“skid!”) is also a member of the class.

Maybe tomorrow we’ll discuss why, if one is going to be pedantic (which one should probably not be), octopodes makes more sense as the plural form of octopus than does octopi.

For now, behold these members of the class/subclass cephalopoda coleoidea: the fearsome octopus! the mighty squid! and the stalwart and redoubtable Tummi Gummi of the deep, the cuttlefish!

Octopus picture by Flickr user OCVA, used under a CC Attribution-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic license

Squid picture by Flickr user Nick Hobgood, used under a CC Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Cuttlefish picture by Flickr user Nick Hobgood, used under a CC Attribution 2.0 Generic license