The English Language

[Perdita]

An ode of English Plural

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 there 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?

[moonstorm]

Very very good!

[Abigail]

It took me a long time to read that properly! It is interesting how the English language tends to break more rules than it fits. If one looks at plurals of German, they all pretty much follow the same rules.

[parkerman]

Yes, very good, Perdy. We have a number of different plurals and different participles of verbs (amongst other things) because we have absorbed so many words from different languages,e.g. British (Celtic), Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Danish, Norman French and so on all with their own rules of grammar.

Not sure about an English muffin not being invented in England though? I thought it was....

[Dazzle]

Nice one, Perdy - it really makes you think about our language. No wonder it's difficult for foreigners to learn.

[Perdita]

There is an old Hotel/Pub in Marble Arch, London , which used to have a gallows adjacent to it. Prisoners were taken to the gallows,
> (after a fair trial of course) to be hung.
> The horse drawn dray, carting the prisoner, was accompanied by an armed guard, who would stop the dray outside the pub and ask the
> prisoner if he would like ''ONE LAST DRINK''.
> If he said YES, it was referred to as “ONE FOR THE ROAD”
> If he declined, that prisoner was “ON THE WAGON”
> So there you go. More bleeding history
>
>
>
> They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken & sold to the tannery. If you had
> to do this to survive you were, "Piss Poor", but worse than that, were the really poor folk, who couldn’t even afford to buy a pot, they "Didn’t
> have a pot to Piss in" & were the lowest of the low.
>
>
>
> The next time you are washing your hands and complain, because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be.
> Here are some facts about the 1500’s:
> Most people got married in June, because they took their yearly bath in May and they still smelled pretty good by June. However, since they were
> starting to smell, brides carried a bouquet of flowers, to hide the body odour.
> Hence the custom today, of carrying a bouquet when getting married.
> Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water.
> The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of
> all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the Bath
> water!"
>
>
>
> Houses had thatched roofs, thick straw piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and
> other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof.
> Hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."
> There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom, where bugs and other droppings could mess
> up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top, afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into
> existence.
>
>
>
> The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, "Dirt Poor." The wealthy had slate floors, that would get
> slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing.
> As the winter wore on, they added more thresh, until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in
> the entrance-way. Hence: a thresh hold.. (Getting quite an education, aren't you?)
>
>
>
> In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle, that always hung over the fire. Every day, they lit the fire and added things to
> the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold
> overnight, then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme: ''Peas porridge hot,
> peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot, nine days old''.
> Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon, to show off. It was a
> sign of wealth that a man could, "Bring home the Bacon." They would cut off a little, to share with guests and would all sit around talking and
> ''Chew the fat''.
>
>
>
> Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning &
> death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.
> Bread was divided, according to status.. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or ''The Upper
> Crust''.
>
>
>
> Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination, would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the
> road, would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather
> around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of ''Holding a Wake''.
>
>
>
> England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So, they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to
> a bone-house and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized
> they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, thread it through the coffin and up through the ground
> and tie it to a bell.
> Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night, (the graveyard shift) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, ''Saved by the Bell
> '' or was considered a ''Dead Ringer''
> And that's the truth.
>
>