Confetti Confetti Confetti are small pieces or streamers of paper, mylar, or metallic material which are usually thrown at celebrations, especially parades and weddings. The origins are from the Latin "confectum", with "confetti" the plural of Italian "confetto", small sweet. Modern paper confetti trace back to symbolic rituals of tossing grains and sweets during special occasions, traditional for numerous cultures throughout history as an ancient custom dating back to pagan times, but adapted from sweets and grains to paper through the centuries. Confetti are made in a variety of colors, and commercially available confetti come in many different shapes. A distinction
Plural form of words ending in -us etymologically Greek despite its Latinized ending, and so pluralizing it as if it were Latin (i.e. as "platypi") is ill-considered. As with "octopus", importing Greek morphology into English would have "platypodes" as the plural, but in practice this form is hardly attested outside of discussions about pluralization. In scientific contexts, biologists often use "platypus" as both the singular and plural form of the word, in the tradition of "sheep" or "fish", but laypersons and scientists alike often use the simple English plural "platypuses". Different dictionaries make different recommendations. As a word in Botanical Latin (as distinct from Classical Latin), "cactus"