Oldies but goodies. I wish I knew other languages well enough to post the same sort of thing. Perhaps our non-native-English brethren and sesthren can post for their languages.


>An ode to English plurals
>
>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,
>Why 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?