A famous 1980s Italian television miniseries called La Piovra (The Octopus) revolved around the Italian Mafia, with the octopus symbolizing its almighty presence in Italian public life. Little did people know that originally the title was not intended to be a symbol; the miniseries really told the story of an octopus. The plot focused on the underwater adventures of Giacomo the Octopus and his friendship with Gulio the Squid and Roberto the Crab. In face of the growing need for tv shows about people, the producers deleted all the video recordings at the last minute and replaced them with a hurriedly filmed story about the mafia.

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Before the term octopus nestled itself for good into the English lexicon, these intelligent marine cephalopods were also referred to by different names. Older English names of the octopus included: polypus, preke, poor-cuttle, pourcontrel, eight-armed cuttle, devilfish, and poulp.

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In 1924,