4 replies to this topic

[mss]

We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called
beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!

Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There
is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither
apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't
invented in England. We take English for granted,
but if we explore its paradoxes, we find that
quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,
and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a
pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't
fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but
not one amend. If you have a bunch of odds and ends
and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call
it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a
humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the folks
who grew up speaking English should be committed to
an asylum for the verbally insane.

In what other language do people recite at a play
and play at a recital? We ship by truck but send
cargo by ship. We have noses that run and feet that
smell. We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the
same, while a wise man and a wise guy are
opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a
language in which your house can burn up as it burns
down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out,
and in which an alarm goes off by going on.

And, in closing, if Father is Pop, how come
Mother's not Mop?

[Rogerdodger]

That's good. Reminds me of this one: The manager of a large city zoo was drafting a letter to order a pair of animals. He sat at his computer and typed the following sentence: "I would like to place an order for two mongooses, to be delivered at your earliest convenience." He stared at the screen, focusing on that odd word mongooses. Then he deleted the word and added another, so that the sentence now read: "I would like to place an order for two mongeese, to be delivered at your earliest convenience." Again he stared at the screen, this time focusing on the new word, which seemed just as odd as the original one. Finally, he deleted the whole sentence and started all over. "Everyone knows no full-stocked zoo should be without a mongoose," he typed. "Please send us two of them."

[mss]

In the old days, women had two stockings. It was "I have a pair of hose" The question always came up if they could not find one of them, were they looking for a "hoe" The strikes again

[esther231]

LOL

[spielchekr]

I was going to suggest bringing Gallagher into this, but you wild and crazy traders can just go too far sometimes.

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