Ode+to+Plurals

English is Krazie Ode to Plurals ~ Eugenie A. Nidia

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,

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">We speak of a brother and also of brethren,

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">But though we say mother, we never say methren.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">Let's face it - English is a crazy language.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">Neither apple nor pine in pineapple.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">English muffins weren't invented in England.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes,

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">We find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">And a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing,

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">Grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">If you have a bunch of odds and ends and

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">Get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">Should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">We ship by truck but send cargo by ship.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">We have noses that run and feet that smell.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">While a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">In which your house can burn up as it burns down,

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">In which you fill in a form by filling it out, and

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">In which an alarm goes off by going on.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 35px; text-align: center;">And in closing, if Father is Pop, how come Mother's not Mop?