Octopodes

Used in a sentence:

• He stood before the assembled mob, book in hand, showing no fear, and uttered the first syllable of his last word, “Octo-” before being taken down by no less than three separate cliques of grammarians.

Source: Merriam Webster Online

Commentary:

I love this. Mostly because I’ve gotten into arguments about octopuses versus octopi. Now I know they’re both wrong/right! I’ll still likely say octopuses but it’s always interesting to know the British version of English words and I might throw out octopodes every once and awhile, although I can’t promise to pronounce it correctly.