[b]Only the English could have invented this language [/b]

[Big Daddy]

....and i thought I knew english....

Only the English could have invented this language
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,
Then 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?

And if people from Poland are called Poles
Then people from Holland should be Holes
And the Germans, Germs.

And lets not forget the Americans, who changed s to z, but that's another story.

[OverUnderPump]

Good find. Read the latter part before but the poem at the beginning was .

regards

OUP

[timmy]

Now all of this is quite true, but it doesn't even go to the half of it. For one thing, what about what we do to a clock: We wind it, but if we get hit, we've had the wind knocked out of us. OR, how do we say goodnight to a knight if he's not a good knight on a night that's not nice?

All this is silly, as well.

Now, we Americans may seem silly, but we've tried to put things aright. For instance, here in the USA, we could put up a fence, or we could remove it through a defence process, but if we tried to stop someone else from a defence project, we would set up a fence defense. This seems perfectly natural, because unlike in the UK, we Americans would never set up a fence defence.

Also, here in the USA, if we have a letter to type, we give it to our sec-re-tar-y.

In the UK, the letter is given to the Sec-re-tree.

In the USA, however, a Sec-re-tree would be a place where we picked secre fruit or something.

One thing that mystifies me: Here in the USA, if we have something stored for future use, it is called a re-source.

In the UK, it is called a re-zorce.

However, I have noticed that some Americans do try to put on snobby faux-British sophisticated airs and blather on about re-zorces, too.

Here in the USA, we would call Florida a pen-in-su-la. However, I have also been hearing snobby types try to put on an air of sophistication and call it a pen-in-shoe-la (like former President Bush, but I wasn't fooled...). I would interpret a pen-in-shoe-la to be what would happen if Coach Don Shula had an accident signing autographs.

Then again, we Americans used to talk about the So-vi-et Union, while our cousins referred to the Sov-i-et Union.

So then, we do we Americans have prog-ress, while in the UK, there is pro-gress.

It seems to me that we would both call this last situation topsy-turvy, however.

One more thing, here in the USA, we have some strong regional dialects, as well. When I worked in New Jersey for a couple of years, I once called on a Boston number, where I was asked about "my potty's extension." I had to check myself from informing them that I didn't discuss such subjects in polite society, only with my physician.

Is this because both British and American folks go out in the midday sun?

[thomast1]

Not to forget the English Major who shot the Australian Nurse! she said the major's friend was brought here "To - Die!" (today!!!)