Just received this e-mail and thought you might enjoy a late day chuckle.
Subject: No wonder English teachers go mad!>
> 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. 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.
> ~
> So if Father is Pop, how come Mother isn't Mop?
> And that is just the beginning--even though this is the end
