Squid, Calamari or Calamaries, which is the right term?

Question

"Begad! We are dead Men!" Shouts I.

The monstrous Fiend was thrashing at the helm of the Boat, it's fearsome beak snapping, the tentacles like Prophets of Doom seeking to drag me to the Murkiness of the water and Be-Deviled eyes glaring like Old Clootie hisself!

"Leave that bloody Calamari alone, and put it back in the tank." Shouts this spazzy-ars*d Fish Monger. "You gonna buy it or what?"

"Well", I harrumph "Only a Puff calls a Squid Calamari."

I made a rude noise and gave him the Good Old British V, and went off tittering. Bloody Calamari! Or is it Calamaries, which I believe is the Anglicized variant of the Spanish Calamares?

Pi**ing Squid for short eh?

Answer 1

In all the Italian restaurants I have been to, it's Calamari on the menu.  Or is that squid pro quo?

Answer 2

Any restaurants ive been 2 abroad its calamari

Answer 3

Its a cruel sea to be sure old boy, reminds me of the time I fell overboard on HMS Rotter's maiden voyage! to many gins see old chum. What should be waiting for me in the watery insanity of the pacific ocean but a nine legged giant squid, yes nine! a terrifying sight and no mistake.

Six hours I battled with the ferocious beast my only weapons a broken gin bottle and good old fashioned British tenacity, suffice to say there was only one outcome, and unless I'm very much mistaken I'm not a nine legged giant squid. Tip top.

Answer 4

To call a squid 'calamari' seems altogether presumptuous. That squid is not on your fork or any restaurant's menu yet. It is still one of God's creatures while it's sucking water into its conspicuously chewy cavity, and not yet lightly grilled with lemon and touted as Catch of the Day.

Is the hunt for deer or venison? Where's the joy in a joust with a foregone conclusion?

Answer 5

Eeh! that reminds me of my old Latin master, and what he used to say.  He used to say,  'Stop fiddling around under the table boy, or you'll come to a sticky end.'  and then he would make me read him old Roman recipes, while he drooled and rubbed his stomach.  Suckling pig drowned in honey used to make his eyes glaze over.     Calamaro, from the Latin calamrium, pen-case, from Latin calamrius, relating to a reed pen, from calamus, reed pen (perhaps from the 'ink' the creature secretes).  Calamari is of course the plural, which presents a problem.  The derivation is dubious, I would have thought it owes more to the pen case shaped bone to be found in a squid.  One per squid, and furthermore, One ink sac per squid.   If you eat calamari, you have a plateful of the little squid to be found lurking in greek toilets and places, but you might get one single creature onto your fork.  A calamaro per se.  Of course, when buying some battered squid cooked in diesel oil from a Spanish street vendor late at night, they are in fact rings - carved from the tentacles of a much larger mollusc.  So was your monster correctly addressed as a calamaro,  since  he would have been if he had been consumed in one gulp with a very big fork indeed, or should he instead be referred to as calamari (because of the very large number of little bits he would be reduced to in your Vesta packet paella £1 reduced price at the discount shop)?  The correct response to the ignorant fish-monger should have been, " Your use of the singular pronoun 'it', in combination with the plural 'calamari' betrays your lack of education, dolt!"

This would be incomprehensible to him, so you should translate it into the traditional backslang used by fishmongers since time immemorial, when palming "dillo doc" or "old cod" off on unsuspecting customers.

I fear fisticuffs might ensue though.