[Editors] English is a *crazy* language

[Lois Slavin]

English is a Crazy Language!


We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes; but the plural of oxbecame 
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 mouseor 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 Igive you a boot, would a 
pair be called beet?

If one is a tooth and awhole 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 theplural would 
never be hose, and the plural of cat is cats, not cose.

We speakof a brother and also of brethren, but though we say mother, we 
neversay 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 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 ineggplant 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? (Note: My 
favorite!)


Sometimes, I think all the folks who grew up speaking English should

becommitted 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 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.