This is my first post on this board, so I want to say greetings to everyone.

I am quoting Smith's prose poem "The Caravan" in a short story of mine, using the text on this website, and want to make sure that I have the correct text. What worries me is the word "metropoli", in "and metropoli a million leagues away,". To the best of my knowledge, "metropoli" is not a plural of "metropolis" (all dictionaries I have consulted give "metropolises" as the plural, and in Greek it would be "metropoleis"). Did Klahkash-ton screw up, or is there any possible corruption in the text?

Chris wrote:

> I am quoting Smith's prose poem "The Caravan" in a
> short story of mine, using the text on this
> website, and want to make sure that I have the
> correct text. What worries me is the word
> "metropoli", in "and metropoli a million leagues
> away,". To the best of my knowledge, "metropoli"
> is not a plural of "metropolis" (all dictionaries
> I have consulted give "metropolises" as the
> plural, and in Greek it would be "metropoleis").
> Did Klahkash-ton screw up, or is there any
> possible corruption in the text?

I think it's the former, unfortunately. CAS wasn't a classicist and it is quite a common error (like octopi or ignorami). It appears here too:

Quote:

And built of a stone that was indestructible save in the furnace of suns, their cities rose beside those of the living like the prodigious metropoli of Titans, with walls that overgloom the vicinal villages.

The Crypts of Memory

CAS's literary knowledge didn't always match his literary talent.

Actually, this was a fairly common poetical usage, and you'll run across it in many poets and prose writers who used a more lapidary style throughout at least the late 19th century....

jdworth wrote:

> Actually, this was a fairly common poetical usage,

Being fairly common doesn't make it correct.

> and you'll run across it in many poets and prose
> writers who used a more lapidary style throughout
> at least the late 19th century....

Can you give some examples? It's not stylish to impose a false plural on "metropolis": it's solecistic.

In the OED, the second meaning of metropolis contains this:

Forms: 15- metropolis, 16 metrapolis, metropilis; also Sc. pre-17 metropolus. Plural 16 metropolisses, 17 metropolis's, 18- metropolises, 19- metropoli.

1. Christian Church. The seat or see of a metropolitan bishop. Now chiefly hist. exc. in Orthodox Church.

2. orig. Greek Hist. The mother city or parent state of a colony.


So metropoli is not normal, but apparently it is acknowledged as a form.

NightHalo wrote:

> In the OED, the second meaning of metropolis
> contains this:
>
> Forms: 15- metropolis, 16 metrapolis, metropilis;
> also Sc. pre-17 metropolus. Plural 16
> metropolisses, 17 metropolis's, 18- metropolises,
> 19- metropoli.
>
> So metropoli is not normal, but apparently it is
> acknowledged as a form.

It is a form, but a wrong one and marked as such (red letters in the online edition). The OED also has this for "octopus":

Plural octopuses, octopi, (rare) octopodes Brit.

Also marked as an error. If you're going to treat the word as Greek rather than English, you need to get the Greek plural right and CAS (apparently) didn't.

Thank you very much! I too am annoyed to see words (particularly words of Classical origin) mishandled any old way by writers.

I'm happy to know I have the correct text of the poem, though.

Chris wrote:

> Thank you very much! I too am annoyed to see words
> (particularly words of Classical origin)
> mishandled any old way by writers.

A little learning is a dangerous thing. As we will discover sooner or later.

> I'm happy to know I have the correct text of the
> poem, though.

I wouldn't say for sure that it is, but it looks like it.