[SOC] The English Language

[Bob Nielsen]

To My Articulate English Speaking Friends....... 


  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 other 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 most 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 oarsman 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 the 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)The wind winds the windmill. 

  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. 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 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? 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.

  Oh and if Dad is Pops, how come Mom isn't Mops