With the discovery, based on observing how an octopus actually uses its eight arms, that an octopus really uses two of them as legs for getting around and six of them as arms for arm-doing-things-with it seemed like a good time to interview an octopus for a representative thought of the whole change.
``Terrible! Right away, you know, it spoils that zany joke for elementary-school kids about what our favorite Beatles tune is.''
``I want to hold your hand hand hand hand hand hand hand hand?''
``Right! That's perfect for making the giggly kid who likes sitting on the end of the lunch table against the wall laugh relentlessly, so everyone else can laugh at him. The joke hasn't got the right meter as `I want to hold your hand hand hand hand hand hand.' It doesn't work.''
``Maybe we'll get used to it in time. We got used to the wild card in baseball.''
``Get used to? Is getting used to things any sort of future? We shouldn't get used to things, we should enjoy them.''
Thoughts arose for the poor kid on the end of the lunch table, who surely needs jokes suitable for reading in slender books before that glorious week of discovering Mad Libs. ``You know, by now they probably have jokes about your favorite web site.''
The octopus's brow furrowed, assuming an octopus has a brow and that a brow once had can furrow. ``Octopedia?''
``If that isn't in the books of laffs for kids by now it ought to be.''
The octopus nodded, warily, as though suspicious about how `laughs' would be misspelled. ``But there's no need to lose a joke to add that one.''
``I don't mean to argue the joke front,'' which was true since who does, ``although with one-quarter fewer hands that's got to represent a great savings in glove expenses.''
``One quarter off, sure. Or one-third off depending on what you think `one' is. Just watch, they're going to say `one' is `six' so they can say it's a bigger savings. If `one' were `eight' like it should be then `two' would just be one-quarter, like it really is.''
I could follow that, though it's tough going around the third turn. ``Oh, you're so cynical.''
``It's easy to be cynical when you're facing an infinity-percent rise in boot expenses.''
I may not know everything there is to know about an octopus, but I do know a logical opening when I see it, unless it's in a context where I hear it. ``Now, hang on there. Isn't it actually a 75-percent cut in your boots, since `octopus' means literally eight -- ''
``Feet, I know, and do you see anything on a standard-issue octopus that looks like a foot?''
``I don't see much that looks like an arm either.''
``So we're even or you haven't looked at many octopuses.'' I considered asking the judge to declare the octopus a hostile witness, but that would raise all sorts of further complications. Where do you even get a judge with proper jurisdiction over an octopus on short notice? Do they like it? What if they're tired of being called up all hours of the day and select hours of night to make rulings about the questions an octopus should answer.
``Hey, isn't the plural of octopus something freaky anyway -- ''
``Octopi? No, people just pass that one off now and then to rile up the Latin pedants.''
``They do need to be occasionally riled, and allowed to simmer. But I was thinking of the more complicated one.''
``Octopodes, then. That's not bad, but nobody needs it. Octopuses serves all the plural needs that any given octopus-discusser has.''
``Unless you get stuck and start talking about the octopusesusesuseses.''
``Life and plurals can't be lived without any risk.''
Who knew where we had reached by now? ``So, are you going to make the transition to two-legs, six-arms?''
``I'm going to stick to my own ways and I don't care how people count it.''
``By the way what *is* your favorite Beatles tune?''
``Maxwell's Silver Hammer.''
``Really?''
``Of course not. It's Penny Lane.''
Trivia: By 1888, fifty thousand men and women cycled in the United States. Within two years that had doubled. Source: Victorian America: Transformations in Everyday Life, 1876 - 1915, Thomas J Schlereth.
Currently Reading: Between the Strokes of Night, Charles Sheffield. Gee, as Earth struggles under food shortages and climate disasters and plunges toward global nuclear war, a lone industrialist builds a fleet of space stations with perfect long-term sustainability. Never seen that setup before.