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
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
breathren,
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 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 don'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.
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 formby filling it
out,
and in which an alarm goes off by going
on.
So if father is pop, how come mother
isn't mop?
And that is just the beginning -
even though this is the end.
Everything works out in the end,
If it hasn't worked out,
it's not the end.
(author unknown)
