[Healeys] Saturday Rambling

Mark Goodman mkgoodman at worldnet.att.net
Sat Aug 25 11:51:26 MDT 2007


>From Sandy Vought:

 

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 neither 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?

 

Mark Goodman

66BJ8 35503


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