[Lexicog] Crazy English language

[Beth Merrill]

Note: At least part of the material cited (if not all of it) is from the book "Crazy English," by Richard Lederer. I don't have my copy handy to check if the entire quote is there.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Fritz Goerling 
  To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 4:37 PM
  Subject: [Lexicog] Crazy English language



  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.

  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.

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

  Or park on a driveway and drive on a parkway?

  --AUTHOR UNKNOWN--or is it "KNOTKNOWN"?





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