The correct plural of octopus is octopuses. The forms “octopi” and “octopodes” have been reanalyzed forms created by others due to the word’s history as a Greek (and Latin) loan word. However, loan words in English almost always receive the regular plural ending.
Both ‘food’ and ‘foods’ is correct. Regularly, ‘food’ is an uncountable noun, so it doesn’t have a plural form in most cases. However, you can use the word ‘foods’ when you are talking about multiple types of food. The same is true for the words ‘fish’ and ‘people’.
Deer is pluralized as ‘deer’ because of the word’s history. In old English, deer did not receive a plural ending. As English changed and developed, it retained this quirk throughout its development and remains the same to this day.
Humen is not the plural form of human because it comes into English through Latin. Words like man and woman become men and women because they are native English words. It’s similar to other -en plurals: oxen and children. Words borrowed into English don’t experience the same changes as native words do.
The reason why the plural form of chief is not chieves is because this word was borrowed into English between 1100AD and 1400AD from Old French. During this time, English experienced many changes in grammar and vocabulary. English loanwords do not change in similar ways to native English words.
Long story short, the correct way to turn the word “children” into the possessive form is children’s. Since children is already plural, you would not spell it as childrens’. This only happens with plural words that end in the letter ‘S’.
The plural for bus is buses. The confusion between buses and busses likely comes from situations where English words double their final consonant. English nouns don’t do this. It happens most often for English verbs. Busses was once acceptable as a plural for bus, but it has since fallen out of use.
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