[SOC] The English Language

[Dennis]

pretty cool Bob...
incidently, when Bob goes swimming, does he bob ??

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bob Nielsen" <nielsen@oz.net>
To: <soc@mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2003 12:10 PM
Subject: [SOC] The English Language


> 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
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