SOMETHING LIKE THIS COMES AROUND EVERY NOW AND THEN -
THIS IS ONE OF THE BETTER ONES.
For Those 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's come Mom isn't Mop?
AUTHOR UNKNOWN or is it KNOTKNOWN?
Copyright explained:
-----------------------------------
When you write copy you have the right to copyright the copy you write,
if the copy is right.
If however, your copy falls over, you must right your copy.
If you write religious services you write rite, and have the right to
copyright the rite you write.
Very conservative people write right copy, and have the right to
copyright the right copy they write. A right wing cleric would write right
rite, and has the right to copyright the right rite he has the right to
write. His editor has the job of making the right rite copy right before
the copyright can be right.
Should Jim Wright decide to write right rite, then Wright would write
right rite, which Wright has the right to copyright.
Duplicating that rite would copy Wright right rite, and violate
copyright, which Wright would have the right to right.
Right?
