A terrible English Lesson...

[Bat]

:confused: Guaranteed to boggle your minds.



An Ode to Plurals

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.
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?

[Mimi]

Thanks Bat, I love it!:)

And: Just to comfort all English speaking Rudies: In German it's much worse - and I'm really glad I never had to learn it as a foreign language.:D

But Italian is fantastic: A grammar so regular that one can only dream of it.

MIMI:)

[aabram]

Thanks for cheering me up Bat and Mimi, I loved this! I'm a not a German speaker, and after those words of comfort from you, Mimi, I think I shall.....er..... remain so!!!!! :D

Annabel

[Dee]

"We have noses that run and feet that smell." http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k267/deemark/Emoticons/chuckling.gif

[Mimi]

"We have noses that run and feet that smell." http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k267/deemark/Emoticons/chuckling.gif

Hey, that's exactly the same as in German!

MIMI

[stardust]

This is wonderful, Bat! Are you the author?

[Dee]

I take it you already know
of tough, and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you
on hiccough, through, slough and though.

Well done! And now you wish, perhaps
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.

And dead; it's said like bed, not bead!
For goodness sake, don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat,
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt)
A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother.

And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there's dose and rose and lose –
Just look them up - and goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward
And font and front and word and sword.

And do and go, then thwart and cart.
Come, come, I've hardly made a start.
A dreadful language: Why, man alive,
I'd learned to talk when I was five.
And yet to write it, the more I tried,
I hadn't learned it at fifty-five.

[Eva]

You should all learn Hungarian. It's very regular. Non of this confusing crap. Like in Dutch (a.k.a. the Chinese of the west)

Eva

[DaveM]

Is anyone else out there familiar with the 19th Century attempt at an English phrasebook, "English As She Is Spoke"? Apparently it was written by a man who did not speak English himself--the text is hilarious.

Full text, along with a bunch of c. 1880s commentary, may be read at http://books.google.com/books?id=TZFZ95l2QtEC&dq=english+as+she+is+spoke&pg=PP1&ots=lfAIDVcSI4&sig=lE3OJ1ipk8u1bR4oTZxdoCKKUN0&prev=http://www.google.com/search%3Fhl%3Den%26q%3DEnglish%2BAs%2BShe%2BIs%2BS poke&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with-thumbnail#PPA27,M1

[lucille]

And there is "Strine And How It Is Spoke" by Alfabeck Lauder.

Translation
Australian and how it is spoke by Alphabetical Order

[Chet]

I remember reading this question when I was younger:

If people from Poland are called Poles, how come people from Holland are not called Holes?

As to the last question in Bat's post - "if Father is Pop, how come Mother's not Mop?" - that's because the first and last letters have to be the same (Pop), that's why Mother is Mom!

[lucille]

Ah, so Chet, going on that logic "English" speaking countries everywhere but the US, and maybe Canada, would say Mum and Pup.?:)

[Chet]

Ah, so Chet, going on that logic "English" speaking countries everywhere but the US, and maybe Canada, would say Mum and Pup.?:)
Depends on how you spell it. Mom or Mum.

That's just my confused logic (both Brit and Am influenced) at work.

[aabram]

Chet I fully sympathise with you. As a British subject not all of us realise how complicated our language is. Therefore I feel duty-bound to learn another complicated language, and German would probably get my vote. I sometimes feel :o that our language is so full of pitfalls!!!!!

Annabel

[DaveM]

Why aren't people from Finland called Fins?

[Dee]

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k267/deemark/Vintage%20and%20Strange/wateronroad.jpg

:confused:

[david uk]

Why aren't people from Finland called Fins?

a very interesting question, Dave.

In their own language they call themselves "suomalaiset" but that doesn't help, does it?

[hoops]

and here all this time i thought the were called fins...more meds please
peace
hoops

[KarenSews2]

and here all this time i thought the were called fins...more meds please
peace
hoops

I'm with you, Noel! I think it's Finns.

[DaveM]

Dee--if they put up a sign like that, there would be a massive pileup caused by people stopping in order to be able to read all of the words.

The first "slippery day" in Minnesota is always entertaining since a fair number of people have forgotten what slippery roads are like (as a rule, the larger the vehicle, the shorter the memory). Today we got snow and freezing rain, with predictable results, especially on bridges. As I was heading home today, I noticed ice on the first of a series of three bridges, slowed to 35 and even at that speed was pushing it. Following the second bridge there was a four-car accident featuring two pickup trucks in the ditch and two rear-ended cars along the side of the road.

Just past that, an enormous black SUV appeared in my rear window, obviously exceeding the dry pavement speed limit. It whipped into the left lane, passed me while swerved at about a 45 degree angle, and made it perhaps another 100 yards before going straight into the ditch.

I just smiled and waved as I drove by. And my little foreign hatchback took me safely home.

[hoops]

davem...maybe this isn't the right or politically correst thing to do but ^5 man!! woooooooooo hooooooo
peace
hoops

[DaveM]

I just figured it served him right.

[Dee]

Dee--if they put up a sign like that, there would be a massive pileup caused by people stopping in order to be able to read all of the words.

Doesn't OnStar provide that service? It seems to do the thinking for anything else a driver needs.

Pedestrians beware!

[DaveM]

"OnStar Alert: there...is...an...old...lady....crossing...in...fr ont...of....you. Oops...too....late..."

[Kath of the Guitar]

Well done Bat, you and Dee should team up.

[Bat]

Thanks Kath...Dee's is also one of my faves, and I don't think either one of us authored them, just appreciate the vicissitudes of the language.
We like to laugh at ourselves, I think!;)

Chet, do you speak Chinese, and is it horribly difficult?

[Dee]

We like to laugh at ourselves, I think! ;)

Definitely! The ability to laugh as at oneself is a gift. It’s also a necessary requirement on the outrageous Internet. :p

Here are some more language oddities for your consideration.

When the English tongue we speak.
Why is break not rhymed with freak?
Will you tell me why it's true
We say sew but likewise few?
And the maker of the verse,
Cannot rhyme his horse with worse?
Beard is not the same as heard
Cord is different from word.
Cow is cow but low is low
Shoe is never rhymed with foe.
Think of hose, dose, and lose
And think of goose and yet with choose
Think of comb, tomb and bomb,
Doll and roll or home and some.
Since pay is rhymed with say
Why not paid with said I pray?
Think of blood, food and good.
Mould is not pronounced like could.
Wherefore done, but gone and lone -
Is there any reason known?
To sum up all, it seems to me
Sound and letters don't agree.

Written by Lord Cromer, published in the Spectator of August 9th, 1902

To solve the riddle of the source of the previously quoted pieces:

A poem frequently quoted on the Internet is "The English Lesson." Strangely, no-one seems to know the name of the genius who composed it.

The English Lesson

We'll begin with box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox should be oxen, not oxes.
Then one fowl is goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a whole lot of mice,
But 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 pen?
The cow in the plural may be cows or kine,
But the plural of vow is vows, not vine.
And I speak of a foot, and you show me your feet,
But I give a boot... would a pair be beet?
If one is a tooth, and a whole set is teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be beeth?
If the singular is this, and the plural is these,
Why shouldn't the plural of kiss be kese?
Then one may be that, and three be those,
Yet the plural of hat would never be hose.
We speak of a brother, and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
The masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine she, shis, and shim.
So our English, I think you will agree,
Is the trickiest language you ever did see.

I take it you already know
of tough, and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you
on hiccough, through, slough and though.
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead; it's said like bed, not bead!
For goodness sake, don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat,
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt)
A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother.
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there's dose and rose and lose –
Just look them up – and goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward
And font and front and word and sword.
And do and go, then thwart and cart.
Come, come, I've hardly made a start.
A dreadful language: Why, man alive,
I'd learned to talk when I was five.
And yet to write it, the more I tried,
I hadn't learned it at fifty-five.