We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,<\/p>\n

But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.<\/p>\n

One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,<\/p>\n

Yet the plural of moose should never be meese..<\/p>\n

You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,<\/p>\n

Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.<\/p>\n

If the plural of man is always called men,<\/p>\n

Then shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen?<\/p>\n

If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,<\/p>\n

And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?<\/p>\n

If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,<\/p>\n

Why shouldn’t the plural of booth be called beeth?<\/p>\n

Then one may be that, and three would be those,<\/p>\n

Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,<\/p>\n

And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.<\/p>\n

We speak of a brother and also of brethren,<\/p>\n

But though we say mother, we never say methren.<\/p>\n

Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,<\/p>\n

But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!<\/p>\n

Let’s face it – English is a crazy language.<\/p>\n

There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;<\/p>\n

Neither apple nor pine in pineapple.<\/p>\n

English muffins weren’t invented in England.<\/p>\n

We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes,<\/p>\n

We find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,<\/p>\n

And a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.<\/p>\n

And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing,<\/p>\n

Grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham?<\/p>\n

Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend.<\/p>\n

If you have a bunch of odds and ends<\/p>\n

And get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?<\/p>\n

If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught?<\/p>\n

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?<\/p>\n

Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English<\/p>\n

Should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.<\/p>\n

In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?<\/p>\n

We ship by truck but send cargo by ship.<\/p>\n

We have noses that run and feet that smell.<\/p>\n

We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.<\/p>\n

And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,<\/p>\n

While a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?<\/p>\n

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language<\/p>\n

In which your house can burn up as it burns<\/p>\n

Down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out,<\/p>\n

And in which an alarm goes off by going on.<\/p>\n

And, in closing, if Father is Pop, how come Mother’s not Mop?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I WOULD LIKE TO ADD THAT IF PEOPLE FROM POLAND ARE CALLED POLES THEN<\/p>\n

PEOPLE FROM HOLLAND SHOULD BE HOLES AND THE GERMANS, GERMS<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

AND THE CUBANS \u00a0CUBES!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>ha ha ha\u2026\u2026\u2026Now you know how hard is English for speakers of other languages\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes, But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes. One<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":490,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[68,75,74,63,23,62,59],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spanishforamerica.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spanishforamerica.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spanishforamerica.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spanishforamerica.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spanishforamerica.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spanishforamerica.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spanishforamerica.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spanishforamerica.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spanishforamerica.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spanishforamerica.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}