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 thing, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which you house can but 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.
We'll begin with a boxe, 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 book, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tootha and a whole set are teeth,
why shouldn't the plural of booth be beeth?
then one my 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 a 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,
and English muffins weren't invented in England.
We take English for granted,
but if we explored 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 of them but one,
what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables,
what does a humanitarian eat?"
~Author Unknown
