WHY ENGLISH IS SO DIFFICULT?

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 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 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 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.

If Dad is Pop, how come! mom isn't Mop?


mstan