The
English Language
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We'll begin with a box,
and the plural is boxes;
but
the
plural of
ox
became 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 spoke 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.
Some reasons to be grateful if you grew
up
speaking English
1) The bandage was wound around the
wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to
refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the
lead
out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his
dessert
in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the
present,
he thought it was
time
to
present the present.
8) At the Army base, a bass was painted
on
the head of a bass
drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the
bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the
invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen
about
how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to
close
it.
14) The buck does funny things when the
does
are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down
into
a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer
taught
his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the
sail.
18) After a number of Novocain
injections,
my jaw got number.
19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting
I
shed a tear.
20) I had to subject the subject to a
series
of tests.
21) How can I intimate this to my most
intimate friend?
22) I spent last evening evening out a
pile
of dirt.
Screwy pronunciations can mess up your
mind!
For example... If you have a rough
cough,
climbing can be
tough
when
going through the bough on a tree!
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 or
French fries in France. Sweetmeats are
candies while
sweetbreads,
which aren't sweet, are meat.
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 language do people recite at a
play
and play at a
recital?
Ship by truck and send cargo by ship?
Have
noses that run and
feet
that smell?
How can a slim chance and a
fat
chance be the
same,
while
a
wise man and a wiseguy 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.
English was invented by people, across
the
ages, and it
reflects
the
creativity of the human race (which, of
course, isn't a race
at
all).
That is why, when the stars are out,
they
are visible, but
when
the
lights are out, they are invisible.
That's about enough of this stuff.
Back
to Odds n Ends
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