“Your prompt for #JusJoJan and Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “oc.” Find a word that starts with “oc” and use it in your post. Bonus points if you start and end with your post with an “oc” word. Have fun!” (https://lindaghill.com/2018/01/19/jusjojan-daily-prompt-january-19th-2018/)  These Jots are not only my 500-words a day challenge, but also part of my  Ultimate Blogging Challenge challenge (http://ultimateblogchallenge.com).

So, today, being Stream of Consciousness Saturday, I’m supposed to write a post using a word that starts with “oc”, and use it in my post.  But, of course, since I am still working through the 500 words a day challenge, I will need to somehow make this post 500 words.

The first challenge is to pick a word that begins with “oc”.  I think I have a lot of choices.  Some of the ones I’ve seen today are occasion, ocelot, and, what else?  I’ve forgotten.  But there are lots of words.  Bigly words.  Some of the best words, you might say.

How about occupy?  I think that’s a good one for some of the stuff going on today.  How some people choose to occupy their time given government shutdowns and how certain presidents occupy their time blaming everyone by themselves, even though they were quite clear a few years back that shutdowns are the president’s fault.  Maybe occupy isn’t the best choice today.

I rather like the word occult.  Since I was born on Hallowe’en, there has always been a bit of occultishness in my life.  Black kitties, Friday the 13^th, witches, vampires – I love them all!  And nothing like a good ghost story to go to bed with…

Ocean.  Now there is an interesting one.  Occupy and occult sound like ok at the beginning, but ocean sounds like osh.  But I do love the ocean.  It’s one of the things I love about living here, and one of the things I need in a house here.  I mean, if we are going to live here, we should live near the ocean, and by that I mean within walking distance…reasonable walking distance.  I mean, everything here is “near” the ocean, but right now, we are 3 blocks from it, and that works for me!

Oh, oh, oh… Octopus!  I love this word.  Why?  Well, not because I like the creature (I don’t dislike it, but I wouldn’t want one for a pet), and not because I like eating it (although I do, but only when it’s been cooked right – our favourite restaurant, Olo, does a great octopus appetizer!).  So, why do I like this word?  It’s because of the plural.  Some people would say the plural of octopus is octopuses.  And then some know-it-all would say no, it’s octopi.  But all those people are what I like to call wrong.  Believe it or not (and I don’t really care if you don’t, ‘cause I’m right), the plural of octopus is octopodes.  Why?  Because it’s a Greek word, NOT a Latin word.  You were fooled by the “us” at the end, which usually has the plural “i”, you know, as in cactus – cacti, and fungus – fungi, and nucleus – nuclei.  But NOT octopus.

So, now you can amaze all your family and friends by telling them what the real plural of octopus is.

Disclaimer:  If you do a search for octopodes online, you will find conflicting reports of its accuracy as the plural of octopus. Those people are all crazy, and probably say octopi.