In what other language do people drive in a parkway and park in a driveway?
Why does night fall but never break and day break but never fall?
Why
is it that when we transport something by car, it's called a shipment,
but when we transport something by ship, it's called cargo?
Why are people who ride motorcycles called bikers and people who ride bikes called cyclists?
In what other language do they call the third hand on the clock the second hand?
Why is it called a TV set when you get only one?
Why - in our crazy language - can your nose run and your feet smell?
Sometimes you have to believe that all English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane:
If olive oil is made of olives, what do they make baby oil from?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian consume?
A writer is someone who writes, and a stinger is something that stings.
But fingers don't fing and
grocers don't groce.
If the plural of tooth is teeth, shouldn't the plural of booth be beeth?
If the teacher taught, why isn't it also true that the preacher praught?
If harmless actions are the opposite of harmful actions, why are shameless and shameful behavior the same?
English
is a language in which you can turn a light on and you can turn a light
off and you can turn a light out, but you can't turn a light in;
In which the sun comes up and goes down, but prices go up and come down.
In
which your nose can simultaneously burn up and burn down and your car
can slow up and slow down, in which you can fill in a form by filling
out a form and in which your alarm clock goes off by going on.
English
is a crazy language. What is it that when the sun or the moon or the
stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are
invisible; and why when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind
up this essay, I shall end it?
Tricky Plurals
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.
Lets face it, English is a crazy language!
15 Comment(s)
