Inspired by
Three Things Challenge, 29 July 2018
https://thehauntedwordsmith.wordpress.com/2018/07/29/three-things-challenge-29-july-2018/
Today’s things are: mirror, submarine, octopus
Also,
Sunday’s Six Sentence Story Word Prompt!
https://girlieontheedge1.wordpress.com/2018/07/29/sundays-six-sentence-story-word-prompt-14/
CUE WORD: TRANSFORM
A FISH BY ANY OTHER NAME__WHAT THE FISH!
By Neel Anil Panicker
The well past middle age man with the neatly styled salt and pepper beard first stabbed his fork into the soft underbelly of the Southern blue ringed octopus and then dunked it into a bowl of tangy Anchelo Chilli Sauce before depositing the delicacy in his mouth, his taste buds bursting alive with the spicy liveliness of the fresh off the sea eight armed marine mollusk.
Octopi? Octopuses, Octopode? Octopodus? How the fish does it matter which side of the battle line, or as in this case battlelines one is_ whether you a card carrying member of the loyalists among English Grammar Nazis who affirm that octopi is hypercorrect arising as it were of the mistaken belief that the –us in octopus is a Latin second declension ending; or should one join flanks with Fowler’s Modern English Usage that affirms that “the only acceptable plural form is octopuses; or even the Marriam-Webster that cries itself hoarse arguing that octopi is the correct form, though even whilst joining this mother of all wars, the highly revered The Oxford English Dictionary prefers to play it safe and simply list all three__octopuses, octopi, and octopodes in a decreasing order of usage, though not forgetting to mention that the last form is a wee bit rare.
None of this mattered to Dr K.V.S. A. Ramanna, senior nuclear physicist and head of India’s much vaunted Nuclear Programme.
As he gazed at his reflection in the wall mirror in his well stocked upper deck room of the 6000 tonne INS Arihant, India’s first nuclear ballistic missile submarine, a smile crept across his face.
Not bad, he reflected, not bad to have seen his life transform literally from zero to hero__ the journey from the bowels of extreme poverty to the very echelons of intellectual power, may have seen more than its share of turbulence, but each trough of the choppy sea waves had only strengthened his resolve enabling him to power his way and ride the exhilarating crests of life.
Yes, life had been good; one grand roller coaster ride, in fact,__ both for him and his twin brother__the one who made a living out of decoding the etymological origins of anything that walked on Planet Earth and beyond.
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