Useful piece for adult classes

[con's fly is open]

I've frequently broken through barriers with students by freely admitting that English is often a stupid language. I'll lay this piece on them next week.

Four All Who Reed and Right
===========================

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.

(note: poetry ends here- Con)
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?
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.

~Author Unknown~

[burlives]

I can never remember where the "o" in "ghoti" comes from. You know the one: "gh" from "rough", "o" from ::mumble::, and "ti" from "nation", and you have "fish".

English ain't stupid, it's multicultural. While the Chinese were off being all insular and the centre of the universe and inventing a ridiculous bunch of cultural relics they now call a writing system, pink people were invading, travelling about, being political upstarts and eventually coexisiting at least long enough to do business, interbreed and co-opt language.

You know the rough, tough policemen, the PSBs, the gong an, those girly lads with 公安 on their cars. That last character is a wife under a roof, it mean security. Public wives under roofs. I suppose that's why one often sees police vehicles transporting police familes to and from lord knows where, probably secure facilities.

::sigh:: I know, it's a reach, but it often gives me a wry little lift riding around on my bicycle in a flurry of windblown hellos.

[George61]

..........."O" from "women"

[burlives]

Ooooo. I C.

[Ruth]

Con - thanks for sharing. My senior middle school students will understand most of that, so I'm stealing it.

[con's fly is open]

Hey, I stole the intonation games "I don/t have any ice" and "I never said he stole money", so fair's fair. And it's not like I wrote it.